Toward A Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not People

Smith, Neil

doi:10.4324/9781315128061-16

Cited by 170 publications

(290 citation statements)

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“…The process takes advantage of the rent gap (Smith, 1979), wherein the profit potential of land in brownfield areas is quite high, if land can be decontaminated (Bryson, 2012;Teelucksingh, 2009). Desfor et al's (2004, page 170) Toronto-based research suggests that such development is seen by cities as a solution to "historical legacies of industrial pollution", as it reopens these spaces to capital accumulation.…”

Section: Environmental Gentrificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Toxic Wreck to Crunchy Chic: Environmental Gentrification through the Body

Kern

2015

Environ Plan D

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This paper takes up the challenge o f extending and enhancing the literature on environm ental gentrification by considering bodies and embodied practices as significant dimensions o f this process. In considering the question o f how a polluted past can be mobilized as an asset for neighbourhood rebranding and gentrification, this research suggests that the conflation o f both pollution and 'health' with different kinds o f urban bodies and practices is an im portant strategy for solidifying a clean and green neighbourhood future. I argue that some bodies are constituted as 'dirty' by the symbolic and substantive displacement o f environmental pollution onto those bodies, in ways that allow the neighbourhood to redefine itself as clean (whether it is environmentally clean or not) once those bodies are displaced, contained, or made invisible. This perspective requires us to consider the radically coconstitutive character o f representations and materiality, bodies and cities, nature and social relations. Based on a case study of T oronto's Junction neighbourhood, this paper m aintains th at bringing bodies to the foreground attends to the power o f em bodim ent in producing and reproducing urban change and, critically, urban inequalities.

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Section: Environmental Gentrificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Toxic Wreck to Crunchy Chic: Environmental Gentrification through the Body

Kern

2015

Environ Plan D

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“…2 The behaviour of homeowners in Beach Road who are renting their homes can also be understood in the context of the rent-gap theory, the dominant production-side explanation for gentrification. This theory argues that landlords or developers will aim at attaining the maximum possible profitability for their property above the current payable rent (Smith 1979;Sussna 1989). As can be seen in the above descriptions, the relocation of owners from Beach Road and subsequent renting of their properties allows them to capitalize on the rent gap-or difference between the potential rent and the rent capitalized under the present land use-that exists for their properties.…”

Section: Residential Neighbourhoods: Coincidence Of Consumption-side mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, it is the difference between the price of the land at its current use and its potential worth at its 'highest and best use' (Ibid: 543). The bigger the gap, Smith (1979) argues, the stronger the prospects of attracting developers to the core in the hope of maximizing profit when the properties are redeveloped. In the course of development of these devalued urban core lands to reduce the rent-gap, lower income people are often displaced because they lack the financial clout to maintain owner or renter status in the redeveloped properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The production-side theory is most closely associated with Smith (1979), while the consumption-side theory is associated with David Ley (Ley 1996;Biney 2009). With respect to production, Smith (1979) postulated his rent-gap theory, which holds that the flight of investment from the inner cities to the suburbs leads to decreases in land values in the core. This in turn leads to the core's abandonment by the middle classes and increasing land values in the suburbs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Urban Impacts of Resource Booms: the Emergence of Oil-Led Gentrification in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

Eduful

Hooper

2015

Urban Forum

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Existing research on resource booms and their impacts has largely focused at the national level and been undertaken from an economic perspective, primarily through the lens of the resource curse. This study investigates an emergent resource boom in Ghana, where oil was discovered in 2007. Given the considerable existing research on national-level impacts of resource extraction, this study looks at the urban impacts of oil exploitation on the city of Sekondi-Takoradi, the largest urban settlement closest to the nation's offshore oil fields. Drawing on detailed questionnaires completed by 636 people across multiple neighbourhoods, the study examines how oil discovery and exploitation have impacted the city. The study finds that many of the changes facing Sekondi-Takoradi can be understood in light of gentrification theory. This is important because there has been considerable debate over the extent to which models of gentrification, largely forged in the developed world, are relevant in the developing world. The findings of this study extend existing knowledge by not only connecting resource booms to processes of urban gentrification in Sub-Saharan Africa but by also demonstrating that multiple forms of gentrification take place simultaneously in these conditions. The paper concludes by suggesting several avenues through which planners and policymakers might better prepare for the kinds of urban changes that are likely to result from developing world resource booms.

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“…The postulated racially motivated abandonment of many neighborhoods and the subsequent spread of poverty and vacancy suggest that housing condition will decline, because the presence of vacant homes and deteriorating neighborhood quality are strong predictors of residential maintenance, as existing homeowners begin to neglect their own properties (Helms, 2012;Smith, 1979;Spivack, 1991). That decline has been shown to be related to vacancy highlights the presumed inevitability of the neighborhood life cycle idea (Metzger, 2000): as community-level socioeconomic status filters downward, residents become less able to maintain their homes, and the decreasing desirability reduces maintenance and increases abandonment.…”

Section: Mappingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racist housing practices as a precursor to uneven neighborhood change in a post-industrial city

Sadler

Lafreniere

2016

Housing Studies

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a department of Family Medicine, Michigan state university, Flint, Mi, usA; b department of social sciences, Michigan technological university, Houghton, Mi, usA ABSTRACT Racial dynamics and discrimination have been extremely important in influencing decline in the American Rust Belt. The mid-twentieth century departure of white and middle-class populations from cities was precipitated by a breakdown of discriminatory housing practices. This study examines the relationship among housing condition, vacancies, poverty, and demographics in Flint, Michigan, from 1950 to 2010. Historical census data from the National Historical GIS and housing condition data from the City of Flint government are aggregated to neighborhoods defined by economic condition factor (n = 102). Results of rank-difference correlation and geographically weighted regression indicate that, across neighborhoods with the greatest decline in housing condition, the strongest correlate was most often the increase in vacancy rates driven initially by racially motivated suburbanization -suggesting that demographic change alone is not primarily responsible for neighborhood decline. This research is important to understanding the long-term and ongoing consequences of mid-twentieth century racist housing practices, particularly as it relates to the implications of maintaining legacy infrastructure.

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Toward A Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not People

Cited by 170 publications

References 0 publications

From Toxic Wreck to Crunchy Chic: Environmental Gentrification through the Body

From Toxic Wreck to Crunchy Chic: Environmental Gentrification through the Body

Urban Impacts of Resource Booms: the Emergence of Oil-Led Gentrification in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

Racist housing practices as a precursor to uneven neighborhood change in a post-industrial city

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