Gentrification and the Spatial Constitution of the State: The Restructuring of London's Docklands*

Abstract

Abstracts This paper argues that despite recent advances in research concerned with gentrification, the role of the state in this process has not been adequately conceptualised. Existing perspectives largely fail to provide a thorough analysis of the way in which the duality of the states ‘political’ and ‘economic’ functions are related, and how these are represented in concrete spatial situations. Through an empirical focus upon London's Docklands, the way in which the state, through the London Docklands Development Corporation, is spatially constituted and has influenced the gentrification process are examined. First, some conceptual and theoretical questions are discussed. Second, a brief historical context in which gentrification in the Docklands can be situated is provided, followed by an examination of how the restructuring of this area relates to the broader restructuring of state relations. The central role of the state in the gentrification of the Docklands is then considered by looking first, at how the LDDC has aided, through capital subsidisation, the production of a gentrified built environment giving rise to restructured patterns of socio‐spatial polarisation. Second, the question of how this action and the inequalities arising from it have been legitimised, through political, ideological and socio‐cultural means, is examined. Finally, some of the theoretical and political implications of this analysis are addressed.

Re‐urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, Suburbanization or New Urbanism?

“…The development of Docklands initially seemed a very clear-cut case of 'regeneration as gentrification' in which there were unambiguous issues of displacement and the inward migration of a replacement population. This was clearly documented in the literature (Smith, 1989;Brownill, 1990) and, particularly, Foster (1999) whose careful ethnography of new and old, nuanced according to ethnicity and class, pointed to the complex nature of the gentrification process in which their worlds and cultures were, as she describes it, in 'conflict and collision'. Docklands was, as it were, an undisputed case of Neil Smith (1979) style 'gentrification by capital' (Warde, 1991).…”

“…Warde argues that Docklands is a paradigm case of the rent gap approach to gentrification (for a summary see Atkinson, 2003: 2344) in which gentrification is, in the subtitle to Smith's (1979) article, a ‘return to the city by capital not people’. This was undoubtedly the case in Docklands in the early 1980s; land was cheap (under £1 million an acre) and the state was determined to use this to promote a property‐led ‘regeneration’ of the area (Smith, 1989; Brownill, 1990). This would appear to be as near an ‘open and shut’ case of gentrification as could be found in the United Kingdom.…”

Of navies and navels: britain as a mental island

“…Second, the valorization of the sea as consumable icon and seafront cultural marketplace depends on spanning oceanic distance. Waterfront sites such as Liverpool's Albert Docks and London's Docklands become gentriÞed (Smith, 1989;Foster, J., 1999). However, time-space compression, in turn, threatens the idealization of islanded cultural difference across sea space.…”

The Gentrification of Paradise: St. John's, Antigua

“…As in many North American and European cities, the state has also become an active agent in the gentrification process (Smith, 1989). After the first stage of the Redcliffe Quay renovation and restoration plan had been completed, the private firm responsible for its design and implementation approached the government seeking aid to expand the project into the adjacent Fibray's waterfront area.…”