Unravelling false choice urbanism

Abstract

Numerous scholarly and journalistic commentaries on gentrification succumb to an analytically defective formula: weigh up the supposed pros and cons of gentrification, throw in a few half-baked worries about threats to ‘diversity’ and housing affordability, and conclude that gentrification is actually ‘good’ on balance because it represents the reinvestment that stops neighbourhoods from dying during a financial crisis. In this paper, I unravel such ‘false choice urbanism’ by arguing that disinvestment and reinvestment do not signify a moral conundrum, with the latter somehow better than the former. It is argued that gentrification and ‘decay’ are not opposites, alternatives or choices, but rather tensions and contradictions in the overall system of capital circulation, amplified and aggravated by the current crisis. Keeping the focus on gentrification as a political question (rather than a moral one), I offer some thoughts on some strategies of revolt concealed by purveyors of false choice urbanism.

Key words:

• gentrification
• false choice urbanism
• resistance
• crisis
• uneven development

Notes

1 See MacLeod (2013).

2 Thank you to Mathieu van Criekingen for this excellent point.

3 Neil Smith (1982) nailed this: ‘A predictably populist symbolism underlies the hoopla and boosterism with which gentrification is marketed. It focuses on “making cities liveable”, meaning liveable for the middle class. In fact, of necessity, they have always been “liveable” for the working class. The so-called renaissance is advertised and sold as bringing benefits to everyone regardless of class, but available evidence suggests otherwise’ (152).

4 See Ley (1996, 42).

5 Thanks to Stuart Hodkinson for these words.

6 Available at: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tslater/NeilSmithugraddiss.pdf

7 See this article: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice

8 For a remarkable recent study of the structural violence visited upon the working poor via the creation of rent gaps, see Wright (2014).

9 See http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/spike-lee-amazing-rant-against-gentrification.html

10 See http://dreamofsafety.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/paul-gilroy-speaks-on-riots-august-2011.html

11 My sincere thanks to Elvin Wyly for helping me to sharpen these closing paragraphs.

Additional information

Tom Slater is Reader in Urban Geography at the Institute of Geography, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh.