Aesthetics of gentrification: seductive spaces and exclusive communities in the neoliberal city

Abstract

This book examines the relationship between aesthetics and gentrifi cation in contemporary cities from multiple, comparative, global, and transnational perspectives. In the introductory chapter, we argue that the aesthetics of gentrification produce sites of spectacular excess where the political economic forces driving urban redevelopment are empowered to remake space according to the needs of global capital. Through an analysis of the development of London's Greenwich Peninsula, we sug gest that these forms of neoliberal, consumeroriented aesthetics create seductive spaces and instil the desires needed to accelerate exclusionary urban transformations. The introductory chapter also considers the ways in which the aesthetics of gentrification now constitute a globalized, transnational phenomenon involving struggles for power in neoliberal urban contexts. We conclude that aesthetics increasingly function as a battleground where these urban spatial power struggles are played out through displacement, exclusion, and division.

Missing the Present: Nostalgia and the Archival Impulse in Gentrification Photography

“…Yet it is precisely this quality of pastness-what Grainge calls an "archival aura"-that allows it to function as a site of reflection on cultural heritage and what is worth preserving in the present and future, ultimately lending these images a speculative and even hopeful quality. These images, in foregrounding nostalgia, thus highlight the affective dimensions of displacement and at the same time reject what Lindner and Sandoval (2021) refer to as consumption-led, exclusive, and exclusionary spaces of gentrification.…”

‘BEST FOR FOODIES’: Food, Digital Media and Planetary Gentrification

“…The focus on food and foodscapes highlights the latter and prompts us to reconsider the actors, processes and impacts of gentrification beyond the physical displacement of renters by real estate actors. It draws attention to the importance of aesthetics—the realm of the visual, symbolic, sensory and seductive—in shaping our relationship to place, and points to aestheticization as an enabling force of urban change (Summers, 2019; Lindner and Sandoval, 2021). This broadens our understanding of gentrification processes by emphasizing different dynamics of urban transformation and forms of displacement while acknowledging varying degrees of severity.…”

“…At the same time, current residents need to accept these changes without much resistance. Aesthetics play an important role in creating a seductive and pleasurable sensory experience for outsiders while at the same time making these changes non‐threatening, seemingly inclusive and welcomed (or at least tolerated) by residents (Lindner and Sandoval, 2021). Over the past decade, food has become increasingly entangled in these processes of revalorization that commodify the ordinary with help from digital media.…”

“…Commodifying the ordinary or aestheticizing the everyday (Featherstone, 2007) is critical in facilitating and legitimizing gentrification (Zukin, 2009). According to Lindner and Sandoval (2021: 15), aesthetics is ‘one of the battlegrounds where urban spatial power struggles are played out through displacement, exclusion, and division’. Increasingly, these claims for space are being fought through digital media (Degen and Rose, 2022).…”

“…The casualization and cosmopolitanization of urban lifestyles, which is playing out prominently in gentrifying foodscapes, is part of a countercultural aesthetic regime that privileges authenticity, simplicity and diversity as symbols of multiculturalism and democratic values (Joassart‐Marcelli, 2021; Lindner and Sandoval, 2021; Parasecoli and Halawa, 2021). In a society characterized by deep economic, social and racial inequality, consumers want their food choices to be less ostentatious and more ‘omnivorous’ (Hyde, 2014; Johnston and Baumann, 2015).…”