Smith and LeFaivre (1984) argue that “capitalism is based precisely on its ability to
displace the working class in all sorts of situations” yet as Bridge (1994) points out,
Britain has experienced less total forms of gentrification which makes displacement a
less direct or observable corollary. That capitalism is responsible is less clear than that
the existence of both markets and certain forms of market control (see Albon and
Stafford, 1987, on the ill effects of rent control) and it is certainly true to say that the
opening up of markets in previously state run conditions has had adverse and rampaging
effects in the gentrification of property and the displacement of households (Tsenkova,
1994, Smith, 1996). Areas such as Beijing also appear to be undergoing transformation
on the back of the states’ willingness to introduce selective markets.
For many it may be difficult to understand how people can be displaced by what appears
to be the renewal and beautification of previously run-down areas. When the costs and
implications of the introduction of relatively wealthier households to these areas are
understood one can see that the desire by rentier and development capitalists to realise
the potential profits of an area can lead to both the direct displacement of people through
harassment and eviction and the indirect displacement through rent increases and
exclusion from ‘hot’ property markets (Smith, 1996:138). This more enlightened view
of the costs and benefits of gentrification highlights the degree to which people with
money have power over those that don’t.
Attention to the displacement of households through gentrification has been
insignificant in Britain. While displacement can be attributed to a number of causes (see
LeGates and Hartman, 1981:215) only a proportion of this total figure can be attributed
to the gentrification process. While Britain has produced little literature directly related
to displacement, except McCarthy (1974) and Lyons (1995), the literature of the US has
proliferated due, for the most part, to funding by central government and the use of
official and commercial housing survey data. As a bulk of the work on displacement has
been conducted from an American literature base this work is examined in relation to
the displacement process in Britain and London. This extrapolation is made under the
assumption that while gentrification forms a cross-national concept displacement is
likely to be manifest in much the same way; both theoretically and empirically.
It is not, however, particular easy in coming to a working definition of displacement.
While it essentially requires gentrification to have preceded it it can still occur through a
number of routes and have a number of different outcomes. The Grier’s define
displacement, in their HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development)
sponsored study, as happening when; “any household is forced to move from its residence by conditions which affect the
dwelling or its immediate surroundings, and which:
- are beyond the household’s reasonable ability to control or prevent;
- occur despite the household’s having met all previously imposed conditions of
occupancy; and
- make continued occupancy by that household impossible, hazardous, or
unaffordable.” (Grier and Grier, in LeGates and Hartman, 1981:214)
Marcuse (op cit.) has developed the concept of displacement that expands the US
government’s definition. Policy on gentrification and abandonment (when property
becomes so unprofitable that its returns are less than the running costs leading the owner
to leave it) in the US was premised upon three assumptions which found a)
abandonment to be ‘painful but inevitable’, b) gentrification to be a positive
improvement which caused a “trivial” amount of displacement and c) that gentrification
was the only real cure for abandonment. Marcuse set out to show how the two
phenomena were in fact related and expanded the definition provided by the Grier’s
which covered predominantly physical causes such that the following had been
excluded;
- Economic and Physical displacement – which may be included as sub-sets within the
Grier’s definition whereby residents are priced out of a dwelling through rent increases
for example or by physical means such as by heat or by violence.
- Last resident displacement – counting the last resident as the only displacee.
- Chain displacement – when a ‘historical’ perspective is utilised such that counting
includes the number of residents over time which have been displaced from that
property.
- Exclusionary displacement – An important contribution by Marcuse which radically
reformulates the concept of displacement to include those who are unable to move into
property which has been vacated voluntarily yet gentrified afterwards such that another
similar household cannot move in.
These developments have implications for any methodology set up to measure levels of
displacement since it becomes very difficult to adequately operationalise the concepts.
Displacement also affects more people than those who are simply displaced. There is an
effect on other residents who, Marcuse argues, see their;
“neighbourhood changing dramatically, when all their friends are leaving, when
stores are going out of business and new stores for other clientele are taking their
places (or none at all are replacing them), when changes in public facilities,
transportation patterns, support services, are all clearly making the area less and less
liveable.” (Marcuse, op cit:157)
Methodologically speaking (and from the point of view of displacees) this form of
displacement is important because any figure for displacement produced by using
before-and-after measurements will lack any measure of this form. The categories
which Marcuse sets out are not mutually exclusive and highlight the researcher’s
difficulty in measuring displacement when faced with the problems of a longitudinal
analysis coupled with the difficulty of treading a path between the underestimate of the
pure conservative or the overestimate of an extreme liberal definitions of displacement
which are now considered.
It is possible to identify different types of displacement in relation to certain key factors
in the process. Lee and Hodge (1984) distinguish between liberal and conservative
definitions of displacement (see also Swanstrom and Kerstein, 1989, who distinguish
between market and conflict approaches). The latter referring to whether any move may
be considered involuntary other than through eviction or destruction of property and the
former to any factor which appears to act upon the displacee such as rent increases or
harassment. Crucially the dividing line between these definitions affect the perceived
magnitude of the phenomenon. As Lee and Hodge point out;
“Beyond general agreement that displacement refers to involuntary mobility
instigated by forces external to the household, considerable variation exists in the
detailed meanings attached to the term.” (1984:144)
LeGates and Hartman (1981) and Lee and Hodge (1984:148) distinguish further
between private and public modes of displacement in which private refers to
displacement which has not resulted from use of public funds; public displacement is
clearly self explanatory. These types are also referred to in the British literature insofar as reference is made to the way in which rehabilitation grants have been used by
landlords to gentrify property (McCarthy, 1974, Balchin, 1995:67,) and by the inmovers themselves (Hamnett, 1973, Merrett, 1976:45) but the means testing of grant
applicants since 1990 has effectively ceased the relationship. Work has been done on
other ways in which the state may be involved in the displacement process, for example
planning and local policies which may facilitate gentrification (see Ambrose and
Colenutt on North Southwark, 1977, Chambers, 1988 on Hammersmith and Fulham
and Cameron, 1992, on Tyneside and London’s Docklands).
The public sector has clearly sponsored redevelopment and urban programmes such as
demolition and road building which have also contributed to displacement but are not
associated with gentrification in which it is the market mechanism which enables the
process to take place so that it is market, rather than political power, which may be held
to account even though such simplifications may become blurred and overlap in the
final analysis. In the public mode of displacement, in which impact assessment,
compensation and participation take place one can see a model of arbitration needed to
take place in cases of displacement from gentrification so that human rights can be
protected (Leckie, 1995).
Displacement in the past
As has been pointed out (Smith and Williams, 1986:2), many of the earlier writers
dealing with gentrification were highly empirical and did not get much beyond its
outward appearance; that of the physical upgrading of long forsaken tracts of the inner
urban environment which were in need of rehabilitating. The ideological and physical
desirability of protecting the gentrification process were linked in part to the US
taxation system by which operation revenues were generated locally (LeGates and
Hartman, 1986, Smith, 1996). Thus the influx of higher income residents moving into
an area was seen as positive, as was the rehabilitation of the inner urban environment. It
can also be argued that benefits have accrued to owner occupiers in gentrified areas who
may have seen the value of their houses rise dramatically. The late seventies brought a
more theoretically based set of works which began to show the underlying and anti-
social nature of the processes going on. While theoretical schisms have continued until
the present to divide researchers and commentators, this approach to the subject has
revealed far more about gentrification.
Writers have previously managed to provide invaluable data yet the ideological
manipulation of this data has become apparent (see for example the debate between
Sumka, 1979 and Hartman, 1979a, on the divergence between government and
academic figures of displacement). These problems aside it has been possible for
commentators to establish annual flows of displacement (Marcuse, 1986, LeGates and
Hartman, 1981, 1986, Leckie, 1995). Sumka (1979) has shown that annually 500,000
US households were displaced (approximately 2 million people).
The social characteristics and origination of gentrifiers have been identified (LeGates
and Hartman, op cit, McCarthy, 1974, Ley, 1994, Munt, 1987, Bridge, 1994, Zukin,
1982, Warde, 1991) and those of the displacees (LeGates and Hartman, op cit., Henig,
1980, 1984, Chan, 1986, DeGiovanni, 1986, McCarthy, 1974, Lyons, 1995, Smith,
1996) – low income, white working class, the elderly, ethnic minorities (less often since
areas predominated by ethnic minorities become popular far more slowly (although see
Chan, 1986, on Chinatown in Montreal and Smith, 1995, on the emergence of the
Bronx).
Chan also summarises the adverse psycho-social effects of displacement;
“effects of forced uprooting and relocation on them are particularly severe partly
because they are most likely to be long-term residents dependent on the
neighbourhood’s institutions and locally-based social network, and partly because
they are low in resources, and, therefore, would be more likely to experience forced
relocation and uprootedness as a crisis” (Chan, 1986:66)
LeGates, Hartman and Leckie have also written on the ill effects of displacement as a
psychological factor in the gentrification equation. The destination and living
circumstances of displacees, post gentrification has been documented (LeGates and
Hartman, op cit., McCarthy, op cit., Henig, op cit., Smith op cit.) – to more expensive
(80-85% of displacees had to pay more for worse accommodation, Hartman, 1979a:23),
persistent or worse overcrowding, often inferior but frequently adjacent accommodation
to their original location this is often because of a lack of resources to move any further
and often moves are made to friends or relatives households which accounts for much of
the observed overcrowding.
Displacement from gentrification has been defined by Leckie as occurring;
“when households have their housing choices made by another social group and this
may be aided by a legislature which often favours the powerful, the moneyed or the
landowning” (Leckie, 1995: 24).
This provides a strong baseline definition which shows that displacement is not always,
or simply, a violent or harassment based process as was often mentioned in the British
literature (Merrett, 1976:44, Hamnett and Williams, 1979:5). Displacement is to be
associated as much with constraint, social closure, legislative favouritism and market
bias as pure coercion (Marcuse, 1986).
Marcuse’s work is important because it reveals the complexity of displacement, its
history and its dependence on a variety of factors. The fact that the categories he sets out
are not mutually exclusive highlights the difficulty of measuring displacement by the
researcher who has to tackle the problems of a longitudinal analysis and the difficulty of
treading a path between the underestimate of the pure conservative or the overestimate
of the extreme liberal definition. The linking of methodology and ideology in these
developments is important in understanding both the meaning of the concept of
displacement in relation to the gentrification phenomenon and in understanding how
such conceptualisations may be linked to the research process.
Displacement in London
As has already been mentioned, little work has been done on displacement in London
yet the increasing polarisation and occupational change of that area has been noted
(Hamnett, 1976, Hall and Ogden, 1992, Harloe, 1992). In combination with the British
work done on gentrification in London with international literature on displacement it is
possible to gain some insights into the nature of the process in a grounded location such
as London.
In Britain the Department of the Environment carried out a survey in twelve inner
London boroughs (McCarthy, 1974) to find out three things, first, to what extent
existing residents were benefiting from house renovation, second, if they were not, why
did they move away, where to, and to what end, and third, did outward moving
households have different social characteristics to in-moving ones. The final aim was
based around the hypothetical involvement of gentrification in the renovation process.
In addition the study traced the residents in those properties as far as was possible.
The study found that household movement before renovation was marked such that “the
improvement of living conditions did not benefit the original residents.” (McCarthy,
1974:3). In total 68% of applications sampled had been preceded by the outward
movement of at least one household, almost three quarters of all households had moved
away. Of those leaving 80% were tenants, as might be expected.
A sequence of vacation, sale and then improvement appeared prevalent. Interestingly,
very few households were dissatisfied with their new accommodation – this may have
been due to the escape from harassment and eviction, rather than a real improvement in
living standards. By far the largest reason for moves was landlord harassment (43%).
Most importantly McCarthy described this process as one in which the “housing costs
associated with improved (and improvable) dwellings in inner London…tend to act as a
social sieve” (McCarthy, op cit:19).
Lyons (1995), study examined the effect of gentrification on displacement in London
over the censal period 1971-81, in particular looking at the socio-economic, geographic
and migratory aspects of the process. As with McCarthy, Lyons finds that local
migration is associated with low status households while longer range migration may be
associated with those of higher status indicating their relation to constraint and choice
respectively. For Lyons displacement is linked to gentrification and consumer choice for the gentrifiers but for the displacees, because of their lack of market power, they are
subject to constraint and coercion in their moves; or pull and push factors.
Research in the US (Galster and Peacock, 1986) has taken this approach further using
census data, regression analysis and four dependent variables selected as key
gentrification variables; percentage black, percentage college educated, real median
income and real median property values. These were then analysed with regard to a
range of other variables to see which had an impact on the level of incidence of the
gentrification variables. The research found that the different measures and levels of
stringency applied lead to varying levels of the manifestation being identified according
to the different operational definitions used.
These three studies formed the inspiration for this research which needed to use a
longitudinal analysis to study a before and after situation and which acknowledged that
use of the census would be the unrivalled data set to use (see limitations later). The
study was to examine a number of variables as the key dynamics behind gentrification professionals and managers, those with some form of higher education and owner
occupiers. These were selected because of the weight of empirical and theoretical
evidence suggesting them to be key characteristics of gentrifiers and gentrification
activity. It was not possible to elaborate the concept of gentrification any further
because of the restrictive nature of the census questions, a question on income for
example would have been invaluable in this respect. The research then sought to
examine the relationship between these variables and a set of key displacement
variables taken predominantly from the North American literature on the justification
that the two countries’ forms of gentrification were not wholly incommensurable.
