Gentrification is not only an economic process based on individual desires and decisions and independent of political goals, but also a process led or assisted by governments with economic development and national goals. In this work, we study a state-led ethno-gentrification in Acre, a contested city in the north of Israel. Looking beyond the neoliberal terminology of regeneration, we argue that in contested cities gentrification is an economic development policy often intertwined with national-demographic goals. Yet, while economic and national motivations and policies may reinforce one another, they also produce tensions among policy makers, gentrifiers and local residents. ‘State-led ethno-gentrification’ presents the complexity of the relationship between neoliberalism and nationalism in a contested city. Interviews conducted in Acre with policy makers, Jewish newcomers involved in the gentrification process and Arab residents present a complex picture of goals, interests and concerns, as well as contradictions and tensions.
Urban Studies from the Global North highlight the physical displacement of lower-income residents as urban development policies’ central transgression. However, looking only at the class-physical angle of displacement narrows our understanding of other aspects of power relations in space. This research focuses on Israel’s policy encouraging the settlement of middle-class Zionist associations in the city of Lydda. The study argues that in a state of ethnonational conflict, displacement has various manifestations: physical, political, religious, cultural and especially ethnonational. This policy causes long-term residents both hardships and benefits depending on their religious, ethnonational and class affiliations. Therefore, residents express different intensities and patterns of support, ambivalence, or resistance towards the policy. This study suggests a typology of displacement and its implications for different patterns of resistance. Moreover, it calls for scholarly recognition of displacement beyond physical and class aspects.
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