The Revanchist Renewal of Yesterday's City of Tomorrow

Abstract

Although planned as the “City of Tomorrow”, the Bijlmer district in Amsterdam quickly became the quintessential symbol of urban decline. Today, even with half of the planned renewal of the Bijlmer completed, the alleged success of this urban revitalisation programme is questionable. Parts of the black middle class did not move out and some are even returning to the Bijlmer; the combination is producing a type of “black gentrification”, which forces the “undesirables” like drug users, homeless people and undocumented immigrants to leave. This revanchist renewal not only benefits the middle and lower‐class population of the district, but it also serves the interests of private developers. European revanchism makes the city safe for corporate investment and aims to restore social order as well as stimulating the development of a strong middle class. This paper demonstrates how hard revanchist policies are demanded not only by private developers but also by the middle and lower classes, and they exist alongside soft “caring” policies, even for the “undesirables”.

State-led Gentrification and the Changing Geography of Market-oriented Housing Policies

“…Selling social housing then emerges as a more affordable alternative, but also serves other goals such as expanding the housing stock available and attractive to middle class households through the sale and liberalization of social rental housing. Furthermore, while urban renewal policies were typically aimed at sparking gentrification processes in neighbourhoods of low and declining socio-economic status (see Uitermark, Duyvendak, and Kleinhans 2007;Aalbers 2011), current policies are increasingly geared towards accelerating gentrification processes in neighbourhoods of burgeoning demand. This has important theoretical implications: it demonstrates that welfare state restructuring and changing urban housing policies influence the form, intensity and geography of state-led gentrification.…”

The libidinal economy of revanchism: Illicit drugs, harm reduction, and the problem of enjoyment

“…However, in the years that followed, the researchers who took up the mantle of investigating revanchism found it more difficult to square their observations with the starkly dystopian narratives that had come before (Aalbers, 2011;Blokland, 2012;Cloke et al, 2010;DeVerteuil, 2006DeVerteuil, , 2014Huang et al 2013;Johnsen and Fitzpatrick, 2010;Johnsen et al, 2005;MacLeod, 2002;May and Cloke, 2013;Uitermark and Duyvendak, 2008;Van Eijk, 2010). In an influential response to the revanchist city literature, DeVerteuil (2006) argues that even classically revanchist Los Angeles is less than systematically punitive in its policies towards the poor.…”

Housing Estates in Europe

“…In Amsterdam, about 80% of the population of Bijlmer has a non-Dutch ethnicity (Aalbers 2011). Tensta, a housing estate at the periphery of Stockholm, is one of the areas that suffered from the Right-to-Buy policy.…”