State-Led Gentrification and Self-Respect

Abstract

Gentrification is a global and highly controversial issue. This article develops an account of what can be troubling, specifically, about state support for gentrification processes. Recent research points to the fact that gentrification processes are being used by policy-makers in many parts of the world as tools for urban ‘renewal’ or transformation. However, it is claimed that this is often at the cost of badly off residents of these areas. I argue that where the state supports or encourages gentrification processes that either (a) impose non-trivial costs on badly off residents of gentrifying areas or (b) fail to benefit these residents in certain ways, the state disrespects these residents by failing to show due regard for their interests. In doing so, it threatens their self-respect. Having made this argument, I also consider how certain kinds of state investment once gentrification processes have occurred can threaten the self-respect of original residents.

The Injustice of Gentrification

“…180–85). Wells (2022) shifts focus to analyse how gentrification becomes unjust when the relationship between citizens and their state fails to uphold the social basis of self-respect. She argues state-led gentrification, leading to displacement, expresses a lack of respect for citizens’ interests, and is unjust because the state fails to protect those harmed by gentrification, instead favouring wealthier citizens (Wells 2022, 829).…”

“…Wells (2022) shifts focus to analyse how gentrification becomes unjust when the relationship between citizens and their state fails to uphold the social basis of self-respect. She argues state-led gentrification, leading to displacement, expresses a lack of respect for citizens’ interests, and is unjust because the state fails to protect those harmed by gentrification, instead favouring wealthier citizens (Wells 2022, 829). Although these careful normative evaluations of gentrification are welcome, thus far the judgments offered are constrained by a reductive conceptualisation of the phenomenon, which is encouraged by beginning with the theorist’s ideal of just access to housing or the proper relationships between citizens and governments.…”

Gentrification: A philosophical analysis and critique

“…Sixthly, in cases where gentrification is anticipated, certain important harms to incumbent land users can antecede the occurrence of gentrification proper. In the first place, field interviews suggest that in buildings and neighbourhoods perceived to be at risk of gentrification, fear of displacement can have a significant effect on incumbent land users' well-being (Wells, 2022). The fact that fear of a harm can itself inflict harm is of course far from unique to gentrification (the same can be said of racism or sexual harassment, for example).…”

“…Alternatively, a relational egalitarian might also argue that gentrification embodies an act of disrespect towards, or domination over, its victims, or that gentrification is often the product of social relationships in which incumbent land users are afforded insufficient power and respect. These latter two lines of critique have recently been explored by Tyler Zimmer (2017; and Daniel Putnam (2021), whose discussions of gentrification draw on neo-republican as well as relational egalitarian responses to domination and exploitation (see also van Leeuwen, 2022;Wells, 2022;Jenkins, 2022). Both Zimmer and Putnam focus specifically on (1) marketdriven (2) displacement of (3) residential (4) tenants.…”

Residential Integration on Fair Terms for the Disadvantaged

“…Different neighbourhoods typically have distinct customs and community activities that make up the social environment in which residents participate and their lives unfold. Critics argue that advantaged relocation displaces local residents and leads to the cultural transformation of these neighbourhoods, and that we should prevent or limit such ‘gentrification’ (see Huber and Wolkenstein 2018; Wells 2022). In short, two swathes of literature treat this demographic trajectory as either not worth attention or worth attention only to unpack some wrongs of residential change.…”