Resourceful Cities RC21 Conference 2013

Activity: Participating in or organising an event typesParticipation in conference

Description

Session Organiser

Session Description:
Living with gentrification

Recent examples of gentrification research underlined the need to explore linkages between gentrification and urban regeneration. Scholars highlighted the need to look at the processes of displacement and the responses of non-gentrifying groups, instead of studying only the experience of gentrifiers (‘people like us’) (Slater 2006; Watt 2007). This session addresses local responses to gentrification with a particular focus on non-gentrifying groups and their experiences of living in, or being displaced from, a gentrifying neighbourhood. Unlike the mainstream examples, in some cities the arrival of gentrifiers in the neighbourhood does not lead to homogeneity. Gentrification generates a period in which displacement becomes a process. During this process, gentrifiers and the non-gentrifiers become neighbours. This session invites papers that focus on the interactions (symbolic and social boundaries, conflicts) between different social groups in gentrification. Amongst the questions that the session raises are:
How do the interactions between different groups take place, and what are the possible conflicts within gentrifying neighbourhoods (claiming spaces, sanitizing them, etc.)?
What are the inclusionary and exclusionary practices, and what are their implications on urban policies?
To what extent do socio-economic or symbolic borders limit interactions between different groups and lead to spatial clustering?
What are the individual or collective strategies against increasing rent and gradually decreasing affordable housing in gentrifying neighbourhoods?

Period29 Aug 201331 Aug 2013
Event typeConference
LocationBerlin, GermanyShow on map

Keywords

  • gentrification
  • inequality
  • symbolic borders
  • neighbourhoods
  • spatial clustering
  • urban policy