Abstract
Gentrification is neither more nor less than the reconquista of the bourgeois city by the bourgeois. It produces brass doorplates and professionally landscaped front yards. Buildings solidify and surfaces become more durable. Proprietors replace tenants. But is there any other way to introduce capital into the life cycle of an urban neighbourhood? Does urban development allow any stable condition between desertification by affluence on one side and picturesque poverty on the other?
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Notes
- 1.
The term coined for the progressing transformation of New York’s Lower East Side (Smith and Williams 1986).
- 2.
For Smith (1987), gentrification is essentially driven by an economic logic: in his theory of the rent-gap, he describes the situation in which the difference between the revenue of a property in the current situation and its potential rental revenue, given the central location and good access conditions, motivates investors and results in the eviction of current dwellers.
- 3.
As Bruegmann (1996) points out, gentrification can hardly be described by statistical means. Early gentrifiers often have an income which is lower than that of the previous dwellers, and the decline in population numbers can be attributed both to decline and rise in affluence.
- 4.
Lefebvre (1974).
- 5.
“The urban parcel is above all a model of distribution. The primary message is that it does not serve the city well if urban land is controlled by one only, even if it is the state itself…. There should be at least a taming of property by market mechanisms, by competition among many and by the rights deducted from ownership guaranteed for those who are not owners…” (Hoffmann-Axthelm (1990), translation by the author).
- 6.
Sieverts (1997) has identified this aspect as one of the reasons for the lack of cultural strategies for the space he named Zwischenstadt.
- 7.
On the other hand, it must not be overlooked that tenant protection also raises the threshold for those seeking rental accommodation.
- 8.
Wohlstandsverödung, in Fiedler (2004).
- 9.
- 10.
Before reunification, residents of Berlin were not drafted for army service, which resulted in a particularly large young population.
- 11.
Translated as builders collectives in Ring (2013).
- 12.
One element of the Baugruppen mode is that site and building costs are shared by group members based on actual cost, instead of fixed-price arrangements with commercial developers. This mode allows saving on the developer’s profit but also entails the risks of unexpected building costs and that group members might drop out of the project.
- 13.
Kees Christiaanse, in his opening speech for the Architecture Biennale Open City (Amsterdam, October 2, 2009): “The enemy of the open city is the open city itself: the self-destruction of diversity; gentrification, slumming, clotting….”
References
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Fiedler J (2004) Urbanisierung, globale. Böhlau Verlag, Wien/Köln/Weimar
Hoffmann-Axthelm D (1990) Warum Stadtplanung in Parzellen vor sich gehen muss; in: Bauwelt 48
Lefebvre H (1974) La Production d’Espace. English: The production of space. Blackwell, Malden, 1991
London B, Palen J (1984) Gentrification, displacement, and neighborhood revitalization. State of New York Press, Albany
Ring K (2013) In: Senatsverwaltung Berlin (ed) Self made city. Jovis, Berlin
Sieverts T (1997) Zwischenstadt; Bauwelt Fundamente 118. English: Cities without cities – an interpretation of the Zwischenstadt. Taylor and Francis, 2004
Smith N (1979) Toward a theory of gentrification: a back to the city movement by capital, not people. J Am Plan Assoc 45(4):538–548
Smith N (1987) Gentrification and the rent-gap. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 77:462–465
Smith N, Williams P (1986) Gentrification of the city. Routledge, London
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Fiedler, J. (2014). Gentrification. In: Urbanisation, unlimited. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03587-1_6
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