Latin American gentrifications

Abstract

Currently, Latin American cities are seeing simultaneous processes of reinvestment and redevelopment in their historic central areas. These are not just mega-scale interventions like Porto Maravilha in Rio or Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires or the luxury renovations seen in Santa Fe or Nueva Polanco in Mexico City, they also include state-led, piecemeal, high-rise interventions in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Panama and Bogota, all of which are causing the displacement of original populations and thus are forms of gentrification. Until very recently, these processes have been under-conceptualized and little critiqued in Latin America, but they deserve careful scrutiny, along with new forms of neighbourhood organization, activism and resistance. In this introduction, we begin that task, drawing on the work begun in an Urban Studies Foundation-funded workshop on Global Gentrification held in Santiago, Chile in 2012. Our aim is not just to understand these urban changes and conflicts as gentrification, but to empirically test the applicability of a generic understanding of gentrification beyond the usual narratives of/from the global North. From this investigation, we hope to nurture new critical narratives, to engage sensitively with indigenous theoretical narratives and to understand the dialectical interplay between state policies, financial markets, local politics and people. The papers in this special issue deal with the core issues of state power and urban policies (exerted at metropolitan and neighbourhood scales), the enormous influx of financial investment in derelict neighbourhoods that produces exclusion and segregation, the significant loss of urban heritage from rapidly renewing neighbourhoods and the institutional arrangements that can enable anti-displacement activism and self-managed social housing production.Urban Studies Foundation, Fondecyt 1151287 Conicyt Fondap 1513000

The urban land debate in the global South: New avenues for research

“…Smolka demonstrates that the multiplier effect of an administrative change in land use from rural to urban is typically more than 400 percent (2013: 6). Yet, López-Morales et al (2016) urge us to also consider less straight-cut relations between landowners and real estate developers. For Latin American cities, they attest that "[t]he systematic and unequal appropriation of ground rent by developers leaves small landowners, tenants and multioccupants at their mercy […].…”

“…Especially in the Latin American context, studies on gentrification have gained ground (e.g. Ward, 1993;Jones and Varley, 1999;Janoschka et al, 2014;Schlack and Turnbull, 2014;López-Morales et al, 2016). In general, these studies show local peculiarities that do not fit the western model of gentrification.…”

Japanese Gentrification from a Local Community Perspective

“…; López‐Morales et al. ) was developed further by Japanese research on urban decline and regeneration. Regarding gentrification, Japanese scholars (Ajisaka and Tokuda ; Ajisaka et al.…”

“…The theoretical discussion regarding the appropriateness of the concept of gentrification for the non-western contexts (Lees et al 2015;López-Morales et al 2016) was developed further by Japanese research on urban decline and regeneration. Regarding gentrification, Japanese scholars (Ajisaka and Tokuda 2011;Ajisaka et al 2010Ajisaka et al , 2013Fujitsuka 2017;Takagi 1999;Tokuda et al 2009;Yabe 2003;Yagi 2015) often studied the phenomenon of reurbanization (saitoshika), also known as "urban core revival" or "return to the city centres" (toshin kaiki), after the late 1990s in singular Japanese cities, such as Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo, or they made comparisons between Japanese cities.…”

Gentrification is everywhere

“…Nevertheless, this is a boldly panoptical book that scans far and wide, building in particular on the authors' recent edited volume (2015b) and special themed issues in Urban Studies (Shin et al 2016) and Urban Geography (López-Morales et al 2016). It represents a significant act of syncretic scholarship, one that contributes and extends our understanding of the part played by gentrification in converting our cities into ever more corporatised and sanitised spaces, cleansed of the presence of the poorer classes.…”