Urban Studies: An International Journal of Research in Urban Studies

Leffers, Donald

doi: 10.1177/0042098017736426pmid: N/A

This paper investigates the role of real estate developers in shaping land use legislation, land use planning and property law. The conceptual framework draws on third-phase institutionalism and socio-legal theory to examine actors and ideas that influence knowledge and practices of land use, planning and property. This paper confronts absences in planning theory that overlook the role of real estate developers in disputes over land, especially their role in shaping the legislative framework governing land use. The argument is that property law is not simply an objective system of rules interpreted by lawyers, judges and the courts. Neither is it a singular concept protecting private property rights. Rather, it is a complex concept and institution that emerges in practice through political processes, such as social movements, the exercise of power and influence by elite actors, and strategic acts by political actors navigating diverse and competing agendas. The empirical evidence informing this argument derives from case study research of land conflicts on the Oak Ridges Moraine in the Toronto region, Canada, with particular attention given to the relationship between real estate developers, social movement actors, and politicians involved in resolving the conflict.

Mansaray, Ayo

doi: 10.1177/0042098017740099pmid: N/A

The transformation of primary schools in gentrifying localities has sometimes been referred to as a form of ‘class colonisation’. This article draws on ethnographic research with teachers, teaching assistants and parents in two inner-London primary schools to explore the largely unexamined role of school leaders (headteachers) in mediating gentrification processes within urban schools. It argues that institutional history, contexts of headship and leadership style all play an important role in negotiating and recontextualising middle-class mobilisation and power to re-shape primary schools. Headteachers’ relationship to gentrification is therefore not simply one of complicity, but often of contestation and conflict. This article therefore challenges understandings of gentrification as a hegemonic process, and contributes to a more nuanced picture of the educational consequences of gentrification, particularly the institutional realities and experiences of urban social change.

Howell, Kathryn

doi: 10.1177/0042098017736427pmid: N/A

With the increased demand for urban living by high-income households, sponsors of subsidised affordable housing face significant pressure and incentive to opt out of their subsidies and sell or redevelop. National evaluations of HUD data have illustrated the number and characteristics of buildings lost and the neighbourhoods in which they are located, but little has been done to better understand the specific outcomes, including the events leading up to preservation or loss of the subsidised buildings, how they were preserved or lost and what actors were engaged in the process of preservation. This study examines the ways buildings have been preserved and lost in Washington, DC, USA, to better understand the ways that local and state governments might intervene to preserve housing. I argue that affordable housing preservation is not a simple or linear process. Instead, it requires multisector monitoring, data and tools. First, there are multiple opportunities in which to intervene in the process. Second, data from all parts of the preservation puzzle are critical to the ability to intervene to prevent the loss of affordable housing. Finally, preservation is often a long and complex process that engages multiple actors at several levels, including tenants, organisers, attorneys and agency staff – and most importantly, flexible policies and funding sources.

Antonakakis, Nikolaos; Chatziantoniou, Ioannis; Floros, Christos; Gabauer, David

doi: 10.1177/0042098017739569pmid: N/A

In this study, we examine the network topology of UK regional property returns over the period 1973Q4–2014Q4 using a dynamic measure of connectedness developed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2014). Overall, our findings indicate that the transmission of inter-regional property returns shocks is an important source of regional property return fluctuations. What is more, this is a dynamic, event-dependent process which implies that, over time, any UK region can be both a net transmitter and a net receiver of shocks. This in turn is conducive to evidence that the ripple effect is not the only driving force propelling changes in the UK housing market. In fact, we find that the regions of the South West, Outer South East, East Midlands and Northern Ireland seem to be dominant transmitters of property returns shocks throughout the sample period. We further suggest that additional evidence regarding weak segmentation in the UK may stem from the fact that there is constant interaction across all regions over time. Most interestingly, we show that London may also act as a net-recipient of shocks. Findings are important for policy makers purporting to alleviate regional imbalances and achieve balanced growth, as well as investors who formulate portfolio diversification strategies. Our results exhibit robustness to a series of tests.

Booth, Kate; Tranter, Bruce

doi: 10.1177/0042098017736257pmid: N/A

In undertaking what we believe is the first national-scale study of its kind, we provide methodologically transparent, statistically robust insights into associations and potential unfolding effects of house and contents under-insurance. We identify new dimensions in the complex relationship between householders and insurance, including the salience of interpersonal – and likely institutional – trust. Under-insurance is (re)produced along socio-economic and geographical lines, with those of lower socio-economic status or living in cities more likely to be under-insured. Should a disaster strike, such communities are likely to suffer further disadvantage, especially if governments continue to shift the responsibility for risk onto households. Our findings support the observation that insurance can contribute to increasing socio-economic urban polarisation in light of natural disasters. We conclude by considering how under-insurance may contribute to growing urban social stratification, as well as how it may produce situated ethical and political responses that exceed neoliberal aspirations.

Waitt, Gordon; Knobel, Hayden

doi: 10.1177/0042098017740080pmid: N/A

Urban parks are currently enshrined within liveable forms of sustainable urban planning for high-density city living. This article draws on Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s idea of territory to critically explore the embodied geographies of liveability. The concept of territory draws attention to the emplacement of subjectivities constituted not only through the discursive but also the emotional and affectual forces or flows between and through bodies and proximate objects. We argue that the embodied geographies of liveability are both performed and folded through the emotional and affectual circulations flowing through the body. To investigate these performances, flows and connections, an affective mapping exercise of urban park visits was conducted with 18 apartment dwellers in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. We address the concerns about social exclusion raised by the agenda of liveable cities and how the concept of ‘territory’ offers policy-relevant conclusions.

García, Ivis; Rúa, Mérida M

doi: 10.1177/0042098017736251pmid: N/A

Gentrification scholarship often focuses on the vulnerability of long-term residents in general (for example homeowners, renters, and low-income older adults) to displacement, though not necessarily with focal attention to how this process specifically affects low-income minority older adults. Using ethnographic data, the authors prioritise and examine the experiences of aging low-income Puerto Ricans who, by way of senior-designated affordable housing, remain in some of Chicago’s most rapidly gentrifying communities. Interviews, focus groups, and participant observations are supplemented with data from the US Census from 1970 to 2010 in order to document some of the demographic changes that have been taking place in what were once majority Puerto Rican neighbourhoods. We find that while low-income older Latina and Latino residents are able to stay in a gentrifying neighbourhood, surrounded by new amenities, they still find limited spaces where they feel welcomed, resulting in indirect displacement. We argue that considerations of aging in place should not only include affordable housing, but should also include an accessible neighbourhood in terms of mixed-uses that support the wants and needs of low-income and minority older adults.

Du, Huimin; Li, Si-ming; Hao, Pu

doi: 10.1177/0042098017691464pmid: N/A

In this paper, we extend recent discussions on the relationship with the host place of ‘temporary’ or non-hukou migrants in major Chinese cities through the lens of three psychological processes: familiarity, attachment and identity. The empirical analysis is based on fieldwork conducted in selected villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou. A mixed methods approach is employed. The findings highlight the emotional distance between temporary migrants and their urban milieu: while some become familiar with the city through their prolonged stay, very few establish attachment and identity. The analysis shows that the dominance of indigenous villagers is a major obstacle for migrants to develop attachment to the given village-in-the-city; moreover, perceived institutional discriminations negatively affect migrants’ attachment to the city. The findings also corroborate a social constructionist perception of place identity: when place identity is legitimated and reproduced by the hukou system, it is difficult for migrants to challenge the hegemonic constructions of place and identity and to create their own narratives of identities.

Jiang, Yanpeng; Waley, Paul; Gonzalez, Sara

doi: 10.1177/0042098017740246pmid: N/A

In this paper, we document the displacement and resettlement of over 11,000 villagers who were removed from their homes and relocated in modern apartment blocks to make way for the construction of a new business district in the western suburbs of Shanghai. We examine the expectations and concerns of displaced residents before and after their relocation. Our findings showed that while the former villagers recognised the improvement in their physical surroundings, they were deeply concerned about their loss of rental income resulting from the demolition of their former homes, in which they housed unregistered migrants. They felt unfairly treated by government throughout the relocation process and saw themselves as being decanted into a new village-in-the-city. These results paint a much more unequivocal picture of resident dissatisfaction than is found in some other recent research.

Levenson, Zachary

doi: 10.1177/0042098017735244pmid: N/A

Dispossession need not be the product of malicious intentions or a deliberate programme of accumulation. As I argue in this article, it may paradoxically be the consequence of social spending, or what I call dispossession through delivery. Using as a case study the proliferation of temporary relocation areas (TRAs) in post-apartheid Cape Town, I show how what appears as adequate housing from the municipal government’s perspective exacerbates social isolation, perpetuates squatting and aggravates unemployment, transport costs and interpersonal violence. I draw on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in TRAs and land occupations, NGO reports and interviews with housing officials to understand dispossession through delivery in these relocation sites. While TRAs began as emergency housing in cases of environmental catastrophes, they have become regularised as a form of state-provisioned housing even in non-emergency situations and, above all, in cases of land occupations. They are but one of a range of technologies of delivery that facilitate dispossession, and I conclude this article with a discussion of how formal housing distribution and informal settlement upgrading have similar effects. When these various technologies of delivery are understood as bound together in a single articulation, ‘dispossession through delivery’ challenges the standard opposition between neoliberalism and social spending that characterises much of the literature and begins to map novel socio-spatial effects of one trajectory of urbanisation in a Southern city.