Gentrification and displacement in Greater London: an empirical and theoretical analysis

The thesis involves an inquiry into the little explored nature of the relationship between the processes of gentrification and displacement in the context of the Greater London area. Scant work has been previously undertaken in this country on these processes compared to be the wealth of work conducted already on gentrification. Displacement has barely been acknowledged as a component of the British gentrification experience except through anecdotal evidence and acknowledgement of basic causal association. Three separate but related methodologies were used to piece together evidence to test whether gentrification was a displacing force. First, the 1981 and 1991 censuses were used to examine broad social changes in London at a ward level, second, the Longitudinal Study (LS) was used to examine the linkages between identifiably gentrified areas and the migratory trajectories of gentrifiers and displacees. Finally the use of grounded research was undertaken to look at examples of these processes in situ through interviews with tenant's representatives and local authority officers. The cumulative weight stemming from the use of the three research methods and the view that displacement is a necessary corollary to gentrification is evaluated along with the implications of findings on the need for the retention of affordable housing and the potential costs of urban social restructuring. The evidence suggests a need for a wider set of social and economic costs to be considered in view of the damage that may be done by gentrification. Accurate quantification in the future will not result without the identification and monitoring of gentrification and displacement activity by local authorities via the monitoring of the housing histories of the vulnerable. The work concludes that the study of gentrification and displacement is theoretically and empirically problematic but that the results of the work also form a positive introduction and lever into wider work on such processes in the future and that such research should be continued in the future

Public housing in Australia, stigma, home and opportunity

This discussion paper explores the reasons why public housing has become so stigmatised. The first part of the paper provides an analysis of the problems including under funding and restrictive allocation policies. The second part of the paper makes the case for increased investment and other strategies that can improve the status of public housing

Pleasure Zones and Murder Boxes: Online Pornography and Violent Video-Games as Cultural Zones of Exception

New media formats and technologies raise questions about new-found abilities to indulge apparently limitless violent and sadistic curiosity within our culture. In this context the mainstreaming of sex and violence via mobile and screen media systems opens important questions about the degree to which these influences are harmful or indicative of deeper social problems. In this article we offer a preliminary analysis of the consequences of these new media zones, acknowledging their allure, excitement and everyday cultural position. In particular we focus on a distinctive hallmark of much online pornography and massively popular violent videogames - the offer of unchecked encounters with others who can be subordinated to violent and sexual desire. We suggest that a key implication of these zones of cultural exception, in which social rules can be more or less abandoned, is their role in further assisting denials of harm from the perspective of hyper-masculinist and militaristic social value systems

The urban and regional segregation of indigenous Australians: Out of sight, out of mind?

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Indigenous Australians live in cities and towns rather than remote areas of the country, yet remain segregated and \u27invisible\u27 from the daily lives of non-Indigenous Australians. In 2006, the Australian Indigenous population surpassed half a million. Yet while public and political discourse invariably concentrate on remote Australia, geographically, more than 75% of the Indigenous population is regional or urban and some 31% of Indigenous Australians live in the major cities

The politics of gating (A response to Private Security and Public Space by Manzi and Smith-Bowers)

Gated residential developments, neighbourhoods to which public access is restricted, continue to generate academic, policymaker and public curiosity. Why do people want to live in these places and should public interventions be directed towards either their prevention or tacit acceptance? In a recent paper in this journal, Tony Manzi and Bill Smith-Bowers (2006) attempt to provide what they see as a more subtle approach to these developments, arguing, by way of a critique of some of my earlier work (centrally that of Atkinson and Blandy, 2005), that hostility to gated communities is misplaced on several grounds. I argue here, in return, that there are several problems with the positions they adopt, and that these should be considered if we are to effectively discuss how planning practice and housing systems should work with or against these new trends in the built environment. I argue that the key ‘problematic’ raised by gated communities is less one of empirical evidence on their impacts, since much work already points to a range of problems, and rather what these developments forecast for the character and dynamics of the urban spaces and societies we wish to live in. At the heart of my position lies a concern that either bolstering the case for gated communities or seeing them as neutral objects in the landscapes around us risks amplifying the further construction of impermeable boundaries. Critically then the risk is that ignoring the political and normative aspects of gating, as I believe Manzi and Smith-Bowers do, may lead to further and deeper socio-spatial segregation that itself excludes the voice of social groups least able to challenge or, indeed, reside in gated developments and the additional security that they appear to offer

The politics of gating (A response to Private Security and Public Space by Manzi and Smith-Bowers)

Gated residential developments, neighbourhoods to which public access is restricted, continue to generate academic, policymaker and public curiosity. Why do people want to live in these places and should public interventions be directed towards either their prevention or tacit acceptance? In a recent paper in this journal, Tony Manzi and Bill Smith-Bowers (2006) attempt to provide what they see as a more subtle approach to these developments, arguing, by way of a critique of some of my earlier work (centrally that of Atkinson and Blandy, 2005), that hostility to gated communities is misplaced on several grounds. I argue here, in return, that there are several problems with the positions they adopt, and that these should be considered if we are to effectively discuss how planning practice and housing systems should work with or against these new trends in the built environment. I argue that the key ‘problematic’ raised by gated communities is less one of empirical evidence on their impacts, since much work already points to a range of problems, and rather what these developments forecast for the character and dynamics of the urban spaces and societies we wish to live in. At the heart of my position lies a concern that either bolstering the case for gated communities or seeing them as neutral objects in the landscapes around us risks amplifying the further construction of impermeable boundaries. Critically then the risk is that ignoring the political and normative aspects of gating, as I believe Manzi and Smith-Bowers do, may lead to further and deeper socio-spatial segregation that itself excludes the voice of social groups least able to challenge or, indeed, reside in gated developments and the additional security that they appear to offer

The politics of gating (A response to Private Security and Public Space by Manzi and Smith-Bowers)

Gated residential developments, neighbourhoods to which public access is restricted, continue to generate academic, policymaker and public curiosity. Why do people want to live in these places and should public interventions be directed towards either their prevention or tacit acceptance? In a recent paper in this journal, Tony Manzi and Bill Smith-Bowers (2006) attempt to provide what they see as a more subtle approach to these developments, arguing, by way of a critique of some of my earlier work (centrally that of Atkinson and Blandy, 2005), that hostility to gated communities is misplaced on several grounds. I argue here, in return, that there are several problems with the positions they adopt, and that these should be considered if we are to effectively discuss how planning practice and housing systems should work with or against these new trends in the built environment. I argue that the key ‘problematic’ raised by gated communities is less one of empirical evidence on their impacts, since much work already points to a range of problems, and rather what these developments forecast for the character and dynamics of the urban spaces and societies we wish to live in. At the heart of my position lies a concern that either bolstering the case for gated communities or seeing them as neutral objects in the landscapes around us risks amplifying the further construction of impermeable boundaries. Critically then the risk is that ignoring the political and normative aspects of gating, as I believe Manzi and Smith-Bowers do, may lead to further and deeper socio-spatial segregation that itself excludes the voice of social groups least able to challenge or, indeed, reside in gated developments and the additional security that they appear to offer

Anchoring capital in place : the grounded impact of international wealth chains on housing markets in London

Taking as our focus the city of London over the last decade, we use state-held records of house sales to consider the impact of competition for housing resources in the luxury property market. This data suggests that the use of offshore investment vehicles and the concealment of wealth from national tax agencies have become key mechanisms by which housing resources have been exploited by the wealthy and their capital deployed by agents of the rich. Using the concept of wealth chains, we consider these methods of capital accumulation as these extending flows of managed capital become ‘anchored’ within specific urban spaces, in this case the luxury housing market of inner West London. Our analysis of a selection of these chains shows that the prevailing political management of the property economy benefits those already winning the war of inequality while looking to augment their capital and shield it from tax and regulation. The ultra-wealthy, financial intermediaries and multinational corporations have created chains articulated across space, with the effect of undermining the value of dwellings as homes, and have replaced them with assets to be traded in pursuit of private and offshore wealth gains. The result is an urban context that favours already advantaged and powerful interests and enables the avoidance of tax obligations desperately needed at a time of austerity and intense housing need

Disorderly cities and the policy-making field : The 1981 English riots and the management of urban decline

This article develops a framework for understanding policy-making responses to the crisis of the post-industrial urban economy in Britain through an exploration of the policy event of the 1981 English riots and the policy-making field that surrounded it in which the rival positions of ‘managed decline’ and concerted urban regeneration became reconciled through a roll-out of neoliberal governance mechanisms. The value of this framework for contemporary analyses of urban policy in the context of social marginality and uneven economic development is discussed in the conclusion