Critical Review of Gentrification in the Global South PDF

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Critical review of gentrification in the global south formative essay...

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A Critical Review of Gentrification in the Global South First referenced by Glass as early as the 1960s (Ley, 2009), the term gentrification has traditionally been used to refer to the upscaling of inner-city areas through the influx of middle-class investment (Smith, 1982 in Shaw, 2008 ). Whilst its origins lie in the developed world, the phenomenon has since migrated to the global south and has been witnessed in newly developing cities ranging from Ahmedabad to Cape Town where it occurs rapidly and on a far greater scale (Smith, 2002). Despite its significance, there has been notably less literature produced on gentrification in the global south with a perceived over reliance on trends experienced in North America and Western Europe, highlighting the importance of giving context to the debate situated in this region (Garside, 1993). This review will showcase the debates surrounding the causes and effects of gentrification in the global south, highlighting how government policy and the inflows of global capital are crucial in gentrification’s emergence as well as considering the impacts of community displacement, changing consumption trends and the creation of new urban landscapes. It will finally consider the debate as to whether these changing urban trends should still be referred to as gentrification or should instead be viewed as part of a wider form of urban regeneration. Neil Smith’s reference to “gentrification as global urban strategy” (Smith, 2002, p.427) indicates how the cause of gentrification in the global south is highly politicised. In comparison to the more organic, bottom up approaches adopted by the early gentrifiers in the global north, where middle-class pioneers were responsible for initiating subsequent waves of progressively more deep-rooted regeneration (Rose in Shaw, 2008), the process in the global south appears markedly more legislation dependent and government led. This argument is supported by Ghertner (2014) who highlights how the market liberalisation that occurred in India, specifically the Jawarhalal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission in 2005, opened up real estate for investment allowing regeneration to happen (Ghertner, 2014). The concept that gentrification is critically dependent on legislation in the global south is further shown by Gaffney (2016) who supports Betancur’s (2014) claim that there has been a delay in the onset of gentrification in Rio De Janeiro owing to a slow down in the government’s urban policy reconfiguration (Betancur in Gaffney, 2016). The literature suggests how policy reform can create a range of conditions to promote the onset of gentrification. These often have an international influence and are targeted at attracting global capital and include the removal of FDI restrictions (Ghertner, 2016), infrastructure improvements to lure in foreign capital (Harris, 2008) or the use of

major sporting events such as the Rio Olympics to promote public private partnerships by putting inner city areas in the global public eye (Gaffney, 2016). Whilst these legitimate uses of policy to induce gentrification could reflect similar trends in the global north, Harris (2008) highlights how illicit use of political power, a phenomenon seemingly confined to the global south, could permit gentrification through the use of bribes and patronage by large scale developers to grant permission for regeneration projects. In contrast to the active economic policies implemented to induce gentrification in Asia and South America, Garside (1993) demonstrates how the relaxation of racially motivated apartheid policy such as the Group Areas Act inadvertently had the effect of encouraging gentrification in previously segregated areas. Whilst this demonstrates that policy doesn’t always intentionally bring about gentrification, it does prove that government legislation is the key determining factor in enabling urban renewal in the global south. The discourse of displacement is key when considering the effects of gentrification (Smith in Lees, 2000), especially in the global south. Whilst this effect appears consequential in Europe and North America with redevelopment and resultant higher rental prices driving out low income residents (Shaw, 2008), displacement in the global south is often premeditated. With large, informal settlements often occupying prime inner-city locations, many of those displaced are slum residents who are actively evicted through slum demolition initiatives to make way for real estate investment (Ghertner, 2014). This process is often aggressive and in its most extreme form has led to military occupation and conflict such as in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro (Gaffney, 2016). The active attempt to exclude the urban poor from gentrified areas is exemplified by the creation of ‘periurban enclosures’ (Ghertner, 2014, p.1556) where new walled-off spaces are created on previously publicly accessible land in a deliberate attempt to prevent the previously evicted residents from gaining access. Whilst those displaced from gentrification in the global north often disperse naturally and are hard to monitor (Shaw, 2008), deliberate programmes to resettle gentrification displaced residents in the global south, such as in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, again demonstrate a deliberate form of eviction, often with little consideration for these former residents’ welfare (Desai, 2012). Yet despite displacement’s overwhelmingly negative connotations in the global south, Visser’s research in South Africa shows how the displacement of white residents in formerly segregated areas of Cape Town by black, middle class professionals can be framed far more positively as a form of reclamation (Visser, 2002).

It is also important to consider how gentrification attempts in the global south create a different and redesigned urban landscape. Whilst gentrification in the global north is associated with renovation to maintain a location’s traditional characteristics and charm (Shaw, 2008), the construction of newbuild high-rise tower blocks and gated communities is often classed as gentrification in the global south (Ghertner, 2014). This new construction has been shown by Ghertner (2014) to undermine the consumption side impact of gentrification in Indian cities through the decimation of public space. In other words, the closed off nature of new developments has limited the ability of gentrification to transform a locality’s trends in “cultural consumption” (Shaw, 2008, p.1698) and bring about an upgrade in its retail environment. The concept of enclosure in Indian cities is however countered by Harris’ (2008) study of Lower Parel which is described as a “consumption-filled district” (Harris, 2008, p.2418) with an adapting retail leisure environment, admittedly evolving in a less consolidated fashion than gentrified areas in the global north. This process of upgrading has been shown by Visser (2002) to have the added advantage in the global south of transforming gentrified areas into tourism hotspots, as demonstrated by areas of inner-city Cape Town. These differing experiences confirm Ghertner’s (2014) perspective that gentrification takes on highly varied forms in the global south. This claim of such diverse experiences of gentrification is centre to the debate as to whether the transformation of city’s in the global south should still be classed as gentrification or whether these processes are part of a greater programme of urban renewal and redevelopment. There have been calls for a review of Smith’s traditionalist 1982 definition of gentrification involving inner-city renovation by a middle class (Smith in Shaw, 2008), yet claims that certain characteristics including renovation, social change and displacement that are still recognisable in the context of the global south (Gaffney, 2016). Yet the use of the term has arguably been overextended to include newbuild development, highly dependent on state intervention propped up by international capital in the global south, a corruption of its original form (Ghertner, 2014). The commodification of the urban landscape where property ownership is perceived more as an investment opportunity detracts hugely from early gentrifiers’ intentions of community formation (Ghertner, 2014). In conclusion, a majority of literature supports Smith’s claim that gentrification in the global south has been “generalised” (Smith, 2002, p.440) across the globe. The spread of the phenomenon to the global south has seen it take on a variety of new meanings with heterogenous causes and implications that are increasingly hard to synthesise into one term.

References: Desai, R. (2012) Governing the urban poor: Riverfront development, slum resettlement, and the politics of inclusion in Ahmedabad Economic and Political Weekly XLVII 49–56 Gaffney, C. (2016) Gentrifications in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro Urban Geography 37:8, 1132-1153, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2015.1096115 Garside, J. (1993) Inner city gentrification in South Africa: the case of Woodstock, Cape Town, GeoJournal, 30, pp. 29-35 Ghertner A (2014) India’s urban revolution: geographies of displacement beyond gentrification Environment and Planning A 46 1554 – 1571 Harris, A. (2008) ‘From London to Mumbai and back again: gentrification and public policy in comparative perspective’. Urban Studies 45/12 2407-28 Lees, L. (2000) A reappraisal of gentrification: towards a ‘geography of gentrification’, Progress in Human Geography 24 389-408 Ley, D. (2009). gentrification. In D. Gregory, The dictionary of human geography (5th ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Retrieved from http://ezphost.dur.ac.uk/login? url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bkhumgeo/gentrification/0? institutionId=1856 Shaw, K. (2008) Gentrification: What It Is, Why It Is, and What Can Be Done about It Geography Compass 2/5 1697–1728 Smith, N. (2002) New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy Antipode 34:3 427-450 Visser, G. (2002) ‘Gentrification and South African Cities: Towards a Research Agenda’. Cities, 19: 6, 419–423...