Gentrification and occupancy rights

Abstract

What, if anything, is problematic about gentrification? This paper addresses this question from the perspective of normative political theory. We argue that gentrification is problematic insofar as it involves a violation of city-dwellers' occupancy rights. We distinguish these rights from other forms of territorial rights, and discuss the different implications of the argument for urban governance. If we agree on the ultimate importance of being able to pursue one's located life-plans, the argument goes, we must also agree on limiting the impact of gentrification on peoples' lives. Limiting gentrification's impact, however, does not entail halting processes of gentrification once and for all.

Justice and Internal Displacement

“…Consider, for example, those who migrate to cities to take up waged labour in response to environmental degradation or land use changes that threaten the agricultural practices upon which they rely. Or consider those who move in response to transformations in housing markets which make remaining in place unaffordable (see Huber and Wolkenstein, 2018). Even without specifying in detail what counts as an adequate range of valuable options, it seems clear that these people appear to have few valuable options available to them.…”

Territorial Rights in Unoccupied Places

“…Indigenous people represent the clearest case of an occupancy group that lacks territorial rights in the sense that they do not have a state, and in many cases they are too small or otherwise lack the capacity to exercise these rights in their own state. There may be other kinds of nonstate groups that are in the right sort of relationship to land that they can be said to have group occupancy rights (see the discussion of Africville in Moore 2015 and gentrification in Huber and Wolkenstein 2018). Typically, occupancy in a place generates a presumptive right to remain in a place and not be coercively expelled from it.…”

Cities, selective admission, and economic sorting

“… 4. The exceptions are Kohn (2016) and Huber and Wolkenstein’s (2018) seminal works on gentrification. Note that my focus here is different inasmuch as I discuss the exclusion of would-be residents of the city rather than the city’s existing dwellers. …”

“… 18. Kohn was the first to apply this concept on the urban level. See also Huber and Wolkenstein’s (2018) discussion on the occupancy rights of current urban residents. …”

“… 20. See also Huber and Wolkenstein’s (2018: 11–13) assertion that neither individual nor collective occupancy rights entail a right against the social and physical transformation of a particular area in the city. …”