Mark Davidson

New-Build ‘Gentrification’ and London's Riverside Renaissance:

In a recent conference paper Lambert and Boddy (2002) questioned whether new-build residential developments in UK city centres were examples of gentrification. They concluded that this stretched the term too far and coined ‘residentialisation’ as an alternative term. In contrast, we argue in this paper that new-build residential developments in city centres are examples of gentrification. We argue that new-build gentrification is part and parcel of the maturation and mutation of the gentrification process during the post-recession era. We outline the conceptual cases for and against new-build ‘gentrification‘, then, using the case of Londons riverside renaissance, we find in favour of the case for.

Recovering the politics of the city From the ‘post-political city’ to a ‘method of equality’ for critical urban geography

This paper uses Jacque Rancières understanding of politics to ask what makes cities political entities. We review existing urban geography debates to identify some of the defining features of urban politics and then subject them to critical questioning: are they actually political? The paper seeks to develop existing interpretations of Rancières philosophy within geography to develop his ‘method of equality’ in order to recover the politics of the city. This identifies three necessary components of critical urban scholarship in order that it transcends critique and works towards making democratic politics possible.

Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing Gentrification Debate

This paper is concerned with the conceptualisations of space which underlie debate of gentrification-related displacement. Using Derridas concept of the spatial metaphor, the paper illuminates the Cartesian understandings of space that act as architecture for displacement debate. The paper corrects this through arguing that the philosophy of Heidegger and Lefebvre better serves to understand displacement. Emphasising the topology of Heideggers Dasein and, following Elden, relating this to Lefebvres understanding of space, the paper ‘constructs’ displacement in a way that avoids the abstraction of displacement-as-out-migration and instead emphasises the lived experience of space.

Social sustainability: a potential for politics?

Over the past decade, social sustainability has progressively permeated metropolitan politics as part of a wider sustainability agenda. In doing so, “the social” has reappeared from within a neoliberal context that has ideologically had preference for the individual (Harvey, D., 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press). This paper explores the politics bound up in this recent embrace of social sustainability. It claims a key political distinction lies between a policy emphasis on either the “social” or “sustainability”. Through a consideration of the social, it is argued a potential site of progressive metropolitan politics can emerge, although the context of sustainability brings with it particular challenges. In conclusion, the paper considers how social sustainability debate at the metropolitan scale might be made to reflect a site of politics (Badiou, A., 2002. Ethics: an essay on the understanding of evil (Wo Es War). London: Verso; Zizek, S., 2006. Against the populist temptation, Critical Inquiry, 32 (3), 551–574).

Love thy neighbour? Social mixing in London’s gentrification frontiers

The issue of social mixing has recently moved to the forefront of gentrification debate. In part, this has been stimulated by neoliberal urban policies promoting ‘social mix’, research showing the inability of gentrified neighbourhoods to remain socially mixed and attempts to rethink the association between gentrification and displacement. This paper draws upon a mixed-methods study that examined levels of social mixing between gentrifying and incumbent communities in three neighbourhoods undergoing new-build gentrification in London, UK. Little evidence was found for substantial interactions between populations, and there were few shared perceptions of community. The author claims that the particular character of new-build gentrification has played an important role in generating this socially tectonic situation. Husserls concept of the lifeworld and Bourdieus thesis on the relative structuring of class identity are drawn upon to provide an explanatory framework.

Class-ifying London

Richard Floridas Rise of the Creative Class of 2002 ends with a clarion call for a post-industrial, post-class sensibility: ‘The task of building a truly creative society is not a game of solitaire. This game, we play as a team.’ Floridas sentiment has been echoed across a broad and interdisciplinary literature in social theory and public policy, producing a new conventional wisdom: that class antagonisms are redundant in todays climate of competitive professionalism and a dominant creative mainstream. Questions of social justice are thus deflected by reassurances that there is no ‘I’ in team, and that ‘we’ must always be defined by corporate membership rather than class-based solidarities. The post-industrial city becomes a post-political city nurtured by efficient, market-oriented governance leavened with a generous dose of multicultural liberalism. In this paper, we analyze how this Floridian fascination has spread into debates on contemporary urban social structure and neighbourhood change. In particular, we focus on recent arguments that London has become a thoroughly middle-class, post-industrial metropolis. We evaluate the empirical claims and interpretive generalizations of this literature by using the classical tools of urban factorial ecology to analyze small-area data from the UK Census. Our analysis documents a durable, fine-grained geography of social class division in London, which has been changed but not erased by ongoing processes of industrial and occupational restructuring: the central tensions of class in the city persist. Without critical empirical and theoretical analysis of the contours of post-industrial class division, the worsening inequalities of cities like London will be de-politicized. We suggest that class-conscious scholars should only head to Florida for Spring Break or retirement.

Sustainability as ideological praxis The acting out of planning's master-signifier

The rise and rise of sustainability in urban and social policy circles has transformed the discursive terrain of urban politics. In 2009, Gunder and Hillier argued sustainability is now urban planning’s central empty signifier, offering an overarching narrative around which practice can be oriented. This paper takes up the notion of sustainability as an empty/master‐signifier, arguing that the recognition of its nominal status is central to understanding how it operates to produce ideological foundation. Drawing upon a series of interviews and focus groups with urban and social policy makers and practitioners in Vancouver, Canada, Zizek’s 1989 critique of the cynical functioning of contemporary ideology is used to interpret the city’s engagement with sustainability. Focusing on ‘social sustainability’ it is argued that sustainability has provided a quilting point that has enabled new social and urban policy‐related partnerships and organizational agendas to be developed. However, this coherence remains unstable and plagued by questions of signification due to the radical negativity of the master‐signifier, where efforts at definition and agreement are haunted by the non‐presence of sustainability. It is argued that this framing of sustainability as ideological conduit in Vancouver helps explain the co‐presence of transformative rhetoric and business‐as‐usual. Using Zizek’s critique of cynical reason in contemporary ideology, interview data is drawn upon to show how many practitioners seek to distance themselves from sustainability, but at the same time continue to act it out anyway. In conclusion, the sobering politics of Zizek’s critique of contemporary ideology are considered in the light of growing urban problems.

Beyond city limits

With the publication of their piece ‘Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban?’ in City 19 (2–3), Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid hoped to ignite a debate about the adequacy of existing epistemologies for understanding urban life today. Brenner and Schmids desire to set urban research on a new course is premised on a wide-ranging critique of ‘city-centrism’ that they believe is holding back both mainstream and critical urban research. In this paper, we challenge Brenner and Schmids call for urban theory to shift from a concern with cities as ‘things’ to a concern with processes of concentrated, extended and differentiated urbanization. In their justified desire to critique ‘urban age’ ideologies that treat ‘the city’ as a fixed, bounded and replicable spatial unit, Brenner and Schmid risk robbing critical urban theory of a concept and an orientation that is crucial to both its conceptual clarity and its political efficacy. We offer in its place a conceptual and political defense of ‘the city’ as an anchor for a critical urban studies that can contribute to emancipatory politics. This is absolutely not a call for a return of bounded, universal concepts of ‘the city’ that have rightly been the target of critique. Rather, it is a call for an epistemology of the urban that is founded on an engagement with the political practices of subordinated peoples across a diverse range of cities. For many millions of people across the planet, the particularities of city life continue to be the context from which urbanization processes are experienced, understood, and potentially transformed.

Occupations, mediations, subjectifications: fabricating politics

The revolutions and protests that have spread across the globe since 2008 have been seen as a watershed moment. In this article we examine the relationships between urban space and politics that have emerged across these events. We draw upon the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière to provide a framework to understand some events of this period as political moments and, in addition, attempt to build upon Rancières work to trace out the geographical dimensions of politics. The paper concludes with a consideration of the counter-revolutionary projects enacted by current social orders.

The redevelopment of Olympic sites : examining the legacy of Sydney Olympic Park

This paper examines the redevelopment of the site of Sydney’s 2000 summer Olympics, locating it within debates over the legacy of these events. The paper describes some of the key stakeholders involved in the redevelopment and planning of the site. It provides an overview of the regulatory context and governance bodies that have structured the space since the staging of the Olympics, then identifies two key areas of private-sector involvement, in event space and in business development, where tensions emerged over how the site should best be governed.