Debates on gentrification and the right to the city often overlook, or underestimate, urgent future challenges; and in particular those concerning the unsustainably of high levels of economic growth, and the social and ecological justice issues which go along with this. Urban growth and change over the last 30 years has been largely a story of the emergence of prosperous central areas focused on economic growth, capital accumulation and opportunities for retail expenditure; and property booms driven by speculative capital and corporate players – both of which give multinationals and pension funds somewhere to sink, stabilise and securitise their capital.([14. Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism, Oxford University Press , Oxford])
- London – the most air pollution in Europe, the Guardian reports, 25 June 2010
But this whole story of the social and economic re-composition of central urban areas was never just about narrow issues of housing or gentrification. It also concerns the ownership and use of land, and the meaning and function of work and community. Moreover, this is not just about the physical gentrification of buildings, but also the accompanying slow and insidious gentrification of our minds, outlooks, habits, workplaces, leisure patterns and home life.
Furthermore, are many glaring omissions in current debates, two of which are mentioned here.
1. Climate change and peak oil
First, is the issue of rapid climate change impacts, energy scarcity and fossil fuel dependency, and addiction to ceaseless economy growth, or what Oliver James calls ‘affluenza'([15. James, O. (2007) Affluenza: How to be Successful and Stay Sane Vermillion , London]) High levels of consumerism give cities mushrooming ecological impacts, implicating urban residents in a global ecological footprint which is out of control in respect to the size of the city and its resource base.
A 2002 report called City Limits (Best Foot Forward, [16. Best Foot Forward (2002) City Limits: A Resource Flow and Ecological Footprint Analysis of Greater London — Available at http://www.citylimitslondon.com/]) for example, found that an average Londoner consumed 6.63 global hectares (Gha), compared to the global average of 2.18. Given what we know about the direct links between production, credit-fuelled consumerism and carbon emissions, the consumer function of cities has to be seriously curtailed and relocalised if we are to tackle climate change.
Moreover, the prospect of future energy constraints and the peaking of oil supplies means that cities will anyhow have to radically reduce their dependency on fossil fuel inputs, fundamentally reorganising the provision of housing, energy, food and transport[17. Lerch, P. (2009) Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty Post Carbon Institute]). Adrian Atkinson’s series in City – “Cities after oil”([18. Atkinson, A. (2007) “Sustainable development” and energy futures. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 11: (2) , pp. 201-213 – free to download]) gives an in-depth overview of the problems posed by peak oil. (The German government recently produced a report, the first of its kind by a European government – on the expected impacts of peak oil).
The worrying fact is that nothing short of a global moratorium on the use of known fossil fuel reserves is likely to avert us from exceeding the tipping point of dangerous climate change ([19. Monbiot, G. (2009) How much should we leave in the ground?. Guardian Online — 6 May]).
Any serious argument about either the validity or not of gentrification or the right to the city has to tackle head on the elephants in the room—the model of ceaseless economic growth, and the ecological impacts that go along with this—which contemporary urban life is predicted upon. It also has to tackle the individualist and consumerist values that underpin it, creating in their place a strong impulse for social and ecological justice. Urban de-growth strategies need to be firmly on the agenda along with social justice issues as part of the right to the city, which ask how can prosperity be maintained without high levels of growth and resource throughputs?([20. Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity without Growth Earthscan , London]) The new restraints of climate change and energy scarcity reinforces questions like: What activities should be undertaken in cities? Who gets to decide what these are?
2. Widespread insecurity as a result of neoliberal restructuring
The second neglected issue relates to the growing precarity that affects people right across the social spectrum as a result of neoliberal restructuring of the economy([21. Neilson, B. and Rossiter, N. (2005) From precarity to precariousness and back again: labour, life and unstable networks. Fibreculture pp. 5-15]). Portraits of whole neighbourhoods filled with new middle-class gentrifiers, as accurate as they are, misses wider issues of alienation, disempowerment and precarity that people, both working and middle class, feel.
Moreover, the expansion of the urban middle classes should not be equated with a simple expansion of well-being and prosperity. What the middle classification of central areas also partly illuminates is the increasing disfunctionality of many service sector jobs in the city. Census data and occupation analysis cannot pick this up. Wilkinson and Pickett([22. Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level. Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better Allen Lane , London]) have meticulously highlighted that increased income above a certain level does not result in extra social well-being or happiness. This is sobering analysis for policy-makers who want to stuff cities full of more affluent people. Behind the superficial upgrading of the urban fabric lie much deeper problems of social alienation, debt, disfunctionality, low self-esteem and absence of a sense of community. Housing tenure may change, precarity might not. And in the process we miss opportunities for novel cross-class alliances that might emerge to reregulate and control our market economies.
