See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/233325195

Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing Gentrification Debate

Article in Ethics Place & Environment · June 2009

DOI: 10.1080/13668790902863465

CITATIONS READS

236 728

1 author:

Mark Davidson
Clark University
59 PUBLICATIONS 2,843 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Mark Davidson on 23 February 2023.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [Kings College London]
On: 16 June 2009
Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 907211732]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Ethics, Place & Environment

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713417006

Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing Gentrification Debate

Mark Davidson a
a
Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Parramatta, NSW, Australia

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2009

To cite this Article Davidson, Mark(2009)'Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing Gentrification Debate',Ethics, Place &
Environment,12:2,219 — 234
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13668790902863465
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13668790902863465

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
 Ethics, Place and Environment
Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2009, 219–234

Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing

Gentrification Debate
MARK DAVIDSON
Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Parramatta, NSW, Australia

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the conceptualisations of space which underlie debate of
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

gentrification-related displacement. Using Derrida’s concept of the spatial metaphor, the paper
illuminates the Cartesian understandings of space that act as architecture for displacement
debate. The paper corrects this through arguing that the philosophy of Heidegger and Lefebvre
better serves to understand displacement. Emphasising the topology of Heidegger’s Dasein and,
following Elden, relating this to Lefebvre’s understanding of space, the paper ‘constructs’
displacement in a way that avoids the abstraction of displacement-as-out-migration and instead
emphasises the lived experience of space.

Introduction
On 21 May 2007, the New York Times ran a story entitled: ‘Will Gentrification Spoil
the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?’ In it Clive Campbell, a.k.a. D. J. Kool Herc—a
Jamaican-born DJ and one of the founders of hip-hop—says of 1520 Sedgwick
Avenue, a brick apartment building nestled next to Major Deegan Expressway, west
Bronx, New York City: ‘This is where it came from . . . This is it. The culture started
here and went around the world. But this is where it came from. Not anyplace else’.
The ‘it’ is hip-hop. And the common room in 1520 Sedgwick is where Kool Herc and
his sister, Cindy, began innovating with two turntables and a collection of records
from the likes of James Brown and Booker T & the MG’s. Kool Herc no longer lives
at 1520 Sedgwick. Indeed, he has not for some years, now residing on Long Island.
However, he has joined the campaign to ‘save’ 1520 Sedgwick.
1520 Sedgwick became the focus of community attention when its owners
announced they planned to leave New York State’s Mitchell–Lama programme.
The programme uses state subsidies (tax breaks and mortgage relief) to limit equity
and rental extraction. The programme has become increasingly unpopular in recent
years, with a one-third fall in participating units since 1985, as real estate owners
have found greater profits on the open market. And so, residents and those
associated with 1520 Sedgwick have mobilised to petition for a historic listing in
order to protect the building. This has not stopped 1520 Sedgwick Associates, the
owners of the building, rejecting a bid from tenants to purchase the building.

Correspondence Address: Mark Davidson, Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney,
Level 6, 34 Charles St, Parramatta, NSW 2150, Australia. Email: [email protected]

1366-879X Print/1469-6703 Online/09/020219–16 ß 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13668790902863465
 220 M. Davidson

They have pushed ahead and withdrawn from Mitchell–Lama. Although rent
stabilisation legislation will restrict immediate rent hikes for residents, most will
likely face increased rental costs going forward. However, this has not proven the
sole focus of contestation. Residents have continued to campaign for the protection
of place—via historic listing; particularly for the building’s community room where
Kool Herc fostered the birth of hip-hop.
The question to be asked of this anecdote is: ‘why does the fate of 1520 Sedgwick
matter?’ If legislation exists so that residents will be (at least initially) protected from
excessive rental increases and all will be given 90–150 days notice if they are required
to vacate their units (i.e. exposed to the general features of the rental market), why
should there be moves to protect the building? Of course, I here exclude the
contingent concern of the availability of substitutable/alternative housing elsewhere,
since this is not our primary question. Rather, the concern here is for why the
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

protection of 1520 Sedgwick in particular has stimulated a fight to preserve the

building against the threat of gentrification. The issue at hand here therefore is one
of understanding what is (potentially) lost when a building and/or neighbourhood is
threatened with gentrification. In particular, I want to ask if we can understand what
is lost through the simple allegory of spatial (i.e. location) eviction? Our brief
introduction to 1520 Sedgwick would seem to suggest we cannot, for why would
people fight for a historical listing for the building’s common room—especially in the
absence of protections for their own residential units—in this circumstance?
Furthermore, why have those who do not reside in this building become involved
in the campaign?
This paper explores this question through an examination of the varied concepts of
space which underpin understandings of displacement within the gentrification
literature. It asserts that contemporary debate is marked by an absence of
phenomenology and associated critical understandings of place. As such, it identifies
a particularly strong spatial metaphor (Derrida, 1997) based around the notion of
out-migration (i.e. the physical removal of people from homes and/or neighbour-
hoods) underlying both conceptualisations and empirical tests for displacement.
This, it is claimed, represents a lack of engagement with important space/place
tensions (Taylor, 1999). In order to reconcile this, it is argued that the philosophy of
space underpinning debate requires greater consideration. The paper contributes to
this by examining Heidegger’s (1962, 1971, 1982, 1993) ontology and its concomitant
understanding of space and Lefebvre’s (1991, 2003, 2008) philosophy of space to
illustrate the socio-spatial relations bound up, but underappreciated, in discussion of
displacement.

Refining Displacement to the Abstract

During the fervent and critical gentrification debate of the 1970s and 1980s
(e.g. Hartman, 1979; Smith, 1979; Palen & London, 1984) there was little of the
introspective consideration that surrounds the issue of displacement today
(e.g. Freeman, 2006; Butler, 2007; McKinnish et al., 2008). As gentrification
frontiers rolled out across cities such as New York and London during the 1960s and
1970s, by the time debate reached the 1980s displacement was firmly enshrined as
the consequence of gentrification (Marcuse, 1985). For example, in 1979
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 221

Chester Hartman, attacking Sumka (1979), asserted that gentrification had already
displaced in excess of one million people from their homes (i.e. physically evicted/
removed) in the US. A little later, Peter Marcuse confidently stated: ‘gentrification is
as inherently linked with the displacement of lower-income households as it is
abandonment’ (1985, p. 934). This was subsequently illustrated by LeGates and
Hartman who, using 16 studies of gentrifying neighbourhoods across the US,
argued: ‘displacement imposes substantial hardships on some classes of displaces,
particularly lower-income households and the elderly’ (1986, p. 197).
By the time debate reached the 1990s emphasis had started to shift and an
unpicking of the gentrification/displacement relationship had begun. Much of this
related to Hamnett’s (1991, 1992) criticisms of Smith’s (1979) rent-gap thesis and his
subsequent argument that post-industrial demographic transition was leading to a
professionalisation of urban social composition (Hamnett, 1994); not polarisation.
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

Hamnett has continued this argument, stating:

There is a consistent assumption in the literature that gentrification is a direct

cause of working-class displacement. While this is undoubtedly true in some
cases . . . the slow reduction of the working-class population in many inner-city
areas is, in part, a result of a long-term reduction in the size of the working-
class population. (2003, p. 2419)

Commenting on Atkinson’s (2000) study of displacement in London that

demonstrated a strong correlation between middle class population growth and
working class decline, Hamnett claimed this demonstrates: ‘a gradual contraction of
the working class and its replacement by an expanded middle class rather than
displacement per se’ (2003, p. 2421). Wrangling over the extent and empiric issues
relating to displacement has set the tone for recent debate.
Lance Freeman’s recent study of gentrification in Harlem and Clinton Hill,
New York City, concluded: ‘[gentrification] provides the opportunity to improve the
quality of life of deteriorated neighborhoods and mix residents from differing
socioeconomic strata with benefits for both the indigenous residents and the larger
society’ (2006, p. 169). Here, he builds on previous work with Braconi where they
claimed: ‘rather than speeding up the departure of low-income residents through
displacement, neighborhood gentrification in New York City was actually associated
with a lower propensity of disadvantaged households to move’ (Freeman & Braconi,
2004, p. 51). More recently, a study from the Centre of Economic Studies
(US Bureau of the Census) has used long-form census data from 1990 and 2000 to
argue there is ‘little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in
gentrifying neighborhoods’ (McKinnish et al., 2008, p. ii). This conclusion is drawn
from their analysis of whether income gains in gentrifying neighbourhoods are
attributable to white college graduates or black high school graduates. Here they
argue: ‘It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate
retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of
gentrification’ (McKinnish et al., 2008, p. ii). While some have challenged these
conclusions (e.g. Newman & Wyly, 2006), debate has centred upon proving/refuting
displacement’s occurrence through studies of in/out migration.
 222 M. Davidson

It is acknowledged that this debate is tremendously important. There are questions

surrounding the impact of legislative changes, such as those that have increased
tenancy protection, on limiting displacement. For example, in 2005 New York City
introduced a tax abatement scheme—Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption—to
further tenancy protections by reducing the financial incentives for landlords to evict
elderly tenants. However, the issue of concern here is not one relating directly to
policy, but rather to the philosophies of space that have underlined recent debate of
displacement. In particular, it is the connection made between displacement and
abstract space (i.e. the house and/or census tract) which is of concern. This, it is
claimed, has shaped understandings of displacement (even critical interpretations) in
ways that are at odds with socio-spatial politics implicit in Heidegger’s ontology (see
Elden, 2004a) and explicit in Lefebvre’s (1991) understanding of space.
As a consequence, it is argued that through a particular (spatial) understanding of
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

displacement, the loss of place [or lived space (see Elden, 2004b, pp. 190–191;
Malpas, 2007)] has been mistakenly equated to a loss of (abstract) space. In addition,
through generating an understanding of displacement premised upon an abstract/
calculative conceptualisation of space, the critical humanist philosophy required to
challenge Cartesian (and commodified) understandings of space is too often left
unexplored. For those who oppose gentrification-related displacement, the paper
therefore claims that a different understanding of space is required to underpin an
understanding of displacement.

Thinking Displacement as Space/Place

In Of Grammatology, Derrida (1997, p. 15; 2001, pp. 140–151) brings attention to the
ways in which metaphors, and in particular spatial metaphors,1 are used in Western
philosophy as epistemological foundations. He claims the metaphysical space of
ideas upon which philosophy is constructed is reliant upon a spatial imaginary
(Lucy, 1995); the imagination of presence, a place where science can be built (Spivak,
1997). In particular Derrida points to the architectural spatial metaphors used by
philosophers dating back to Plato (Brodsky-Lacour, 1996), claiming:

. . . for as long as the metaphorical sense of the notion of structure is not

acknowledged as such, that is to say interrogated and even destroyed as
concerns its figurative quality so that the nonspatiality or original spatiality
designated by it may be revived, one runs the risk, through a kind of sliding as
unnoticed as it is efficacious, or confusing meaning with its geometric,
morphological, or, in the best of cases, cinematic model. (Derrida, 1990; cited
in Wigley, 1995, pp. 17–18, emphasis in original)

However, Derrida does not call for the abandonment of the (spatial) metaphor.
As Wigley argues: ‘[P]hilosophy can only define a part of itself as nonmetaphorical
by employing the architectural metaphor’ (1995, p. 18) and, as such, the
‘architectural figure is bound to philosophy’ (1995, p. 19). Derrida’s argument is
that the spatial metaphor, the metaphysics upon which philosophy is based, requires
both acknowledgement and critical consideration: the knowing application of
language and establishment of philosophy [also see Zizek (2006, p. 88) on freedom
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 223

and ‘the abyss’]. Derrida (1997, 2001) therefore argues that it is necessary to peer into
the abyss that ‘structures’ of thought inevitably constructed; to understand this
structurally necessary abyss (Wilken, 2007) and interrogate its epistemological
implications (Wigley, 1995).
If the metaphor fixes meaning and avoids innocent application (Derrida, 2001,
pp. 17–18) we can therefore ask whether particular notions of space and/or place
(Taylor, 1999) are employed or suppressed within our understandings of displace-
ment [see Wilken (2007) on information technology]. As argued earlier, recent
gentrification literature is marked by a concern with the extent of physical
displacement occurring within gentrifying neighbourhoods and the associated
politics of method bound up in the empirics. A significant consequence of this has
been the reading of displacement as a purely (abstract) spatial process. Hamnett and
Whitelegg’s discussion of displacement in Clerkenwell, London, is indicative of this
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

where they state: ‘Their arrival [gentrifiers] and the associated commercial
gentrification have, however, significantly and probably irrevocably changed
the social mix and ethos of the area which was dominated by social rented
housing tenants. This has not, however, been accompanied by significant resi-
dential displacement’ (2007, p. 122). Here, displacement is reduced to the pure spatial
re/dis-location of individuals.
The problem with this understanding of displacement is that it reduces a socio-
spatial phenomena to a purely spatial event.2 This leaves us with a number of
problematic implicit assumptions, including the notion that spatial relocation equals
(a sense of) displacement and that the absence of spatial relocation equates to the
non-occurrence of displacement. Put simply, displacement understood purely as
spatial dislocation tells us very little about why it matters. We miss the very space/
place tensions (Taylor, 1999) that make space a social product (Lefebvre, 1991,
p. 26). This criticism parallels critiques of Cartesian understandings of space
[Heidegger, 1962, p. 95; see Protevi (1994, p. 132), on Heidegger and Descartes’
spatiality] and its applications (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 329–330, 364).
In the next section, the paper focuses upon the work of Heidegger (1962, 1971,
1982, 1993) and Lefebvre (1991, 2003, 2008) to illustrate that the understanding of
displacement currently employed in the gentrification literature is inadequate, reliant
as it is upon a particular ‘spatial’ spatial metaphor. This begins by introducing
Heidegger’s notion of Being (1962) and his critique of Descartes as a method to
approach a phenomenological understanding of displacement. In order to avoid the
potential trapping that Heidegger’s place-based thinking potentially holds (Malpas,
2007, pp. 68–69), I follow Deluca’s (2005) method of ‘selecting’ a Heideggerian
philosophy and Elden’s (2004a, 2004b) connecting of Lefebvre to a left-
Heideggerianism.

Displacement, Dwelling and Place

In Being and Time Heidegger claims Descartes’ ontology is fundamentally flawed
since it obliterates the sensuous essence of being (1962, pp. 128–130). Through his
calculative reason and faith in a mathematical grasp of the subject, Heidegger argues
that Descartes objectifies the world before us (1962, pp. 247–250) and, as a
 224 M. Davidson

consequence, overlooks the basic elements of being-in-the-world, Heidegger’s basic

state of Dasein:

Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence, in terms of its

possibility to be itself or not to be itself. Dasein has either chosen these
possibilities itself, stumbled upon them, or already grown up in them. Existence
is decided only by each Dasein itself in the manner of seizing upon or neglecting
such possibilities. (Heidegger, 1993, p. 54).

This leads Zizek to ask: ‘could we not say that we find ourselves in Heidegger the
moment we fully assume and think to the end the fact that there is no transhistorical
absolute knowledge, that every morality we adopt is ‘‘provisory’’?’ (2006, p. 274).
By asserting the subject’s existence within the world, Heidegger therefore ‘grounds’
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

the subject. As Deluca (2005, p. 74) notes, this leads Heidegger to develop the notion
of Being-in the world on earth, the basing of social (see Zizek, 2006, pp. 276–285)
and spatial existence. Elden (2004a, 2005) sees Heidegger’s engagement with the
latter as part of Heidegger’s post-1930s shift to consider space, opposed to his earlier
emphasis on time. Within this, Heidegger’s concept of dwelling is central.
In his essay ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, Heidegger states: ‘Dwelling, however, is
the basic character of Being . . . Building and thinking are, each in its own way,
inescapable for dwelling’ (1993, p. 362). For Heidegger then, Being is an intimately
spatialised process (Malpas, 2007). His concept of Dwelling (Wohnen), inspired by
Hölderlin’s suggestion that ‘poetically, man dwells on the earth’ is used to capture
the notion of dwelling as lived experience. When Zizek therefore states ‘Heidegger’s
greatest single achievement is the full elaboration of finitude as a positive constituent
of being-human . . . A human being is always on the way toward itself, in becoming,
thwarted, thrown-into a situation, primordially ‘‘passive’’, receptive, attuned,
exposed to an overwhelming Thing’ (2006, p. 273), we have to see this in its full
spatialised dimensions. Opposed to viewing Cartesian metaphysics as a route
towards a scientific mode of living (Elden, 2004a, p. 188), the finitude and essence of
Being is generated, to some degree, by space. This heterogenising of a homogeneous
Cartesian space is also echoed by Derrida (2000) where, drawing on Blanchot, he
argues literature is never bound to place, but always spatio-historically contingent.
The implications of Heidegger’s notion of dwelling are multiple and contentious
(see Malpas, 1999, 2007). However, it is important to draw out one particular point
here. This is the idea that Being, and by extension certain conceptualisations of place
(Malpas, 1999, pp. 7–9, 2007, p. 26), is intricately linked to the lived experience of
space. However, as Malpas (2007, pp. 45–49) notes, this connection cannot be made
through an equating of place with location:

. . . ‘place’ should not be understood as referring primarily to the idea of that in

which an entity is located—place is not simply location or position (Platz,
Stelle). To conceive of place as such already makes place derivative of the idea
of a certain realm or domain in which there are multiple places. Often this is
tied to the idea of space as that realm of extendedness in which a multiplicity of
places, and so of entities, can be located. (2007, p. 48)
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 225

An understanding of space must therefore proceed from the subject.3 It therefore

becomes impossible to understand Being and its related dwelling by the calculative
abstraction of ‘location’. And, of course, this was a central concern for Heidegger:
the penetration of Cartesian philosophy (i.e. through technology) into the very
substance of Being (Zizek, 2006).4
The political implications of Heidegger’s ontology have been widely discussed.
In particular, Heidegger’s concern with Being has been repeatedly related to his
affiliation to National Socialism. While not to repeat this discussion here (see Elden,
2003; Malpas, 2007, pp. 18–23; Zizek, 2006, pp. 86, 284–285), it is important to note
that such place-orientated thinking clearly has close, but not determinate, relations
to reactionary politics. In this regard, I follow Malpas (2007, pp. 26–27) when he
argues that Heidegger-inspired place-based thinking is not inherently flawed by a
problematic politics. Rather, the productivity of this thinking runs the risk of being
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

lost under the weight of such a characterisation:

simply to reject place because of its use by reactionary politics is actually to run
the risk of failing to understand why and how place is important, and so of
failing to understand how the notion can, and does, serve a range of political
ends. (Malpas, 2007, p. 27)

This risk is obvious within current discussion of displacement, where an increasingly

abstractive empirical battleground has lost touch with the very meaning of
displacement itself.
In his recent consideration of gentrification’s contemporary form, Butler has
argued that ‘gentrification needs to decouple itself from its original association with
the deindustrialisation of metropolitan centres such as London and from its
associations with working-class displacement’ (2007, p. 162). Similar arguments have
been made by Freeman and Braconi where they claim that: ‘gentrification brings
with it neighborhood improvements that are valued by disadvantaged households,
and they consequently make greater efforts to remain in their dwelling units’ (2004,
p. 51). Most recently, McKinnish et al. (2008) have presented the results of a
quantitative study of displacement in gentrifying neighbourhoods in US urban areas.
In this they find little evidence for gentrification causing displacement. The evidence
they use to support this assertion is a synthetic cohort analysis of out-migration
which found no correlation with gentrification and non-white household migration.
While these recent studies, and others (see Vigdor, 2002; Freeman, 2005), are
related by their questioning of the extent of displacement in gentrifying neighbour-
hoods, they are also united by a particular understanding of displacement. By this,
I mean all construct displacement as a spatialised migratory process, whereby the
occurrence of displacement is constituted in the out-migration of individuals from a
particular urban space (i.e. the spatial metaphor of embodied migration serves as
definition). In this sense, the ‘staying put’ of incumbent residents within a prescribed
space is found as evidence for the absence of displacement. And, while I agree that
the spatial migration of incumbent residents is an important part of displacement
(see Newman & Wyly, 2006), I also assert that it cannot be used as evidence for a
lack of displacement per se. In particular, I argue here that a focus on displacement
 226 M. Davidson

as out-migration fails to comprehend the core aspect of the process through a

(growing) under-appreciation of place. It is here then that we need to (re)incorporate
an understanding of place into our understanding of displacement. Therefore, the
continuous battling over quantitative measurements of displacement has to be seen
as acting to abstract the essence of the process—place—of which they are meant to
‘measure’.
This requires a move to reassert the place in displacement. In short, there is a need
to ask why displacement matters at all: what does a loss of place constitute? How is a
loss of space differentiated from a loss of place? Here, the previous work of humanist
geographers is illuminating. In distinguishing space and place, Tuan claimed that
‘place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to one and long for the other’
(1977, p. 3). Place, from Tuan’s Heideggerian phenomenological perspective,
therefore has a key ontological role; anchoring identity and existence (also see
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

Relph, 1976). Space is distinguished as less attached to self. A loss of space can
therefore be distinguished from a loss of place through the subject’s orientation. Here
then, the abstracting spatial metaphors that underpin recent debate on displacement
represent a significant divergence from Casey’s claim that: ‘space is now becoming
absorbed into place . . . space is being reassimilated into place, made part of its
substance and structure’ (1998, p. 340, emphasis in original). Rather, place is being
understood as space when it is asserted (e.g. McKinnish et al., 2008) that the spatial
relocation of individuals constitutes displacement.

Displacement and Everyday Life

In order for displacement to be understood in its phenomenological entirety, it is
necessary to replace the spatial metaphors mobilised by the idea of out-migration
with one that captures the full dimensions of the process. Clearly, this involves both
an understanding of how space is integral to place, but also how place is constructed,
practised and inscribed (Poggeler, 1989). The challenge is therefore to avoid reading
place as purely spatial (Malpas, 2007). Only through this philosophical lens can the
problems of (a) asserting an association of place to space where none may exist and
(b) the failure to identify displacement through a focus of spatial relocation, be
avoided.
In attempting to reorient our understanding of displacement through Heidegger’s
ontology, one is immediately presented with the problem of the ahistoricism of his
work. As Elden has claimed:

Whilst he is exceptionally interested in a historical reading of the philosophical

tradition, he is less good on historical detail, with the illustrations often merely
passing references. Equally, while he is penetrating in his analysis of the spatial
aspects of the Greek polis, he often neglects the more explicitly political aspects
of modern appropriations of space. (2004a, p. 93)

Here, Elden recognises the often particularly primitive and romantic origins of
Heidegger’s workings (Zizek, 1999, pp. 15–16). Zizek extends this critique to
Heidegger’s blindness to the political economy: ‘When Heidegger talks about
technology, he systematically ignores the whole sphere of modern ‘‘political’’
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 227

economy, although modern technology is not only empirically, but in its very
concept, rooted in the market dynamics of generating surplus-value’ (2006,
pp. 277–278). Lefebvre’s appropriation of Heidegger (see Elden, 2004b), particularly
with reference to the city (Lefebvre, 2003), is therefore a required step. Heidegger’s
lack of personal and scholarly association with the city, symbolised by his rejection
of an invitation to teach in Berlin where he asked a local farmer friend for his
opinion and simply accepted his shaking head as an authentic answer (see Zizek,
2006), requires a transition of thought to deal with the urban (capitalist) dimension.5
Elden (2004a) draws upon Lefebvre to make Heidegger’s insights capable of this
transition. In doing so, he claims Heidegger represents an unspoken presence in
Lefebvre’s work. Lefebvre’s spatial triad in The Production of Space (1991) can
therefore be seen as an attempt to incorporate a Heideggerian conception of place
(see Malpas, 2007) within a framework of space. Here, place is not subsumed into
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

space (Casey, 1998) but rather place and space can be seen as united [i.e.
incorporating space/place tensions (Taylor, 1999)]; capable of analytical application
in late capitalist urban society. This is achieved through Lefebvre’s explicit
connection of the political and social to space. As such, Lefebvre attacks what he
views as the dominant Cartesian view of space where it has ‘entered the realm of the
absolute’ (1991, p. 1). Here, Elden finds close parallels in the critiques of Lefebrve
and Heidegger:

As early as 1939, Lefebvre had described geometric space as abstractive . . . This

can be usefully related to Heidegger’s critique of geometric space in Being and
Time and other works. For Heidegger . . . we encounter space geometrically
only when we pause to think about it . . . Our mode of reaction to space is not
geometric, only our mode of abstraction is. (Elden, 2004a, p. 95)

The (spatial) intersect between idealism (abstract space) and materialism (absolute
space) for Lefebvre is ‘lived space’. Just as Heidegger’s Being was intricately linked to
the earth around, Lefebvre’s lived space is both mental and physical construct.
As Elden (2004a) notes, the parallel between Lefebvre’s habiter and Heideggers’s
wohnen in terms of their understanding of lived experience are obvious. And so are their
critiques of the societal attacks on both of these constructions. For Heidegger, dwelling
is abstracted by technology’s penetration into everyday life. For Lefebvre, habiter is
reduced to habitat by the commodification of urbanised late capitalism where ‘human
being’ is limited ‘to a handful of basic acts: eating, sleeping, and re-producing’ and
where ‘Habitat, as ideology and practice, repulsed or buried habiting in the
unconscious’ [2003, p. 81; see Davidson (2007) on gentrification and ‘habitat’]. There
are two points which are necessary to be drawn from Lefebvre’s critique here. First,
Lefebvre is identifying the loss of what might be said to be a Heideggerian view of place
(Malpas, 2007) not with (absolute) space, but also the transformation of lived space.
Second, in order to properly enable the essential practice of lived space (or for
Heidegger wohnen) it is necessary for the subject to engage in spatial practices that are
not defined by calculative, rationalist planning and/or commodification.
What therefore is the lesson here for gentrification scholars and the study of
displacement? The first, and most obvious, is the danger of spatial abstraction.
 228 M. Davidson

Put simply, it is impossible to draw the conclusion of displacement purely from the
identification movement of people between locations (e.g. McKinnish et al., 2008).
People can be displaced—unable to (re)construct place—without spatial dislocation,
just as much as they can with spatial dislocation. Conversely, people can be spatially
dislocated without losing place if they did not engage in these practices before.
Second, the growing authority of purely quantitative studies of displacement that
simply relate spatial relocation (or lack thereof) to displacement represents a
significant empirical void in terms of gentrification and displacement. Notable,
however, has been the way in which gentrifiers themselves, and their place-making
practices, have been subject, using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bridge, 2001;
Butler & Robson, 2003), to such attention (Lees, 2007). Finally, (abstract) spatial
studies of displacement have moved critical attention away from the very problems
Lefebvre concerned himself with: the abstraction and commodification of urban
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

space.

Displacement as Lived
Spatial abstraction and the equating of displacement to movements of individuals
across absolute space are prevalent within recent gentrification literature.
For example, in Boddy’s recent critique of Davidson and Lees’ (2005) new-build
gentrification thesis he claims that while new-build development may generate a host
of changes associated with gentrification—social upgrading, landscape change and
reinvestment of capital—they simply do not displace people, with most of them, at
least in the UK, being developed on brownfield sites:

[G]entrification is almost too quaint and small scale a concept to capture the
processes at work . . . In the absence of displacement and overt conflict over
space, however, new residential development in the UK at least has not
provided any real focus for politicisation. (Boddy, 2007, pp. 103–104)

Just as McKinnish et al. (2008) dismiss the association between gentrification and
displacement because of a perceived lack of spatial dislocation, Boddy also makes
the same abstractive manoeuvre. He does this at the same time as acknowledging a
whole set of processes, generated by gentrification, that are transforming place.
This problem represents the continued presence of an empirical and theoretical
void where displacement is not fully understood in its correct dimensions. This can
certainly be said to reflect the presence of a dominant spatial metaphor (Derrida,
1997) with displacement continually being spatialised/located (Malpas, 2007) and the
spatial dislocation of incumbent residents being held up as the litmus test for
displacement and, by extension, gentrification (Slater, 2006). This stated, there have
been some attempts to shift dominant conceptual frameworks. These include
Fraser’s study of neighbourhood politics in a gentrifying neighbourhood of
Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he claimed: ‘there are a wider set of factors that
constitute the marginalization, displacement, and exclusion of certain populations of
people from effectively making claims on neighborhood space’ (2004, p. 454).
Unfortunately, similar studies are small in number and there has been no attempt to
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 229

engage with the question of how place-making activities are altered, commodified
and/or destroyed by gentrification processes.6
There have been a number of consequences related to displacement being thought
about only in its abstract spatial dimension. These, almost certainly, include the
diminishing presence of critical work within recent gentrification scholarship
(see Slater, 2006) since the absence of spatial relocation has been read as an absence
of displacement and, consequently, an absence of class antagonisms and social
injustice more generally (Wacquant, 2008). However, I want to make the point here
that a general failure to understand lived space in its entire dimensions in recent
gentrification scholarship represents a particularly significant problem for critical
commentary.
Recent studies (e.g. Freeman, 2006; McKinnish et al., 2008), that have claimed
gentrification does not generate significant displacement, have been refuted on a
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

number of grounds. In challenging Freeman’s (2006) study of gentrification in

New York City, Newman and Wyly claim it significantly under-estimates the extent
of displacement: ‘We found that between 8300 and 11,600 households per year were
displaced in New York City between 1989 and 2002 . . . We expect that
both figures underestimate actual displacement’ (2006, p. 51). Newman and
Wyly’s (2006) study is an invaluable contribution to gentrification debate and
certainly questions the extent to which some scholars have dismissed displacement
(e.g. Butler, 2007). However, what Newman and Wyly are focusing on here is a
refuting of the extent to which people are spatially dislocated as a result of
gentrification. What this does not achieve, and what is generally lacking, is an
informing of debate by a philosophy of space that allows displacement to be
captured in its appropriate dimensions.
Key to Lefebvre’s spatial triad is the notion that various manifestations of space—
representational space (conceived), spatial practice (perceived) and representations
of space (lived)—construct social space (1991, p. 40). For Lefebvre then, space is not
an inert thing, but rather something which is integral to social process: ‘(Social) space
is a (social) product’ (1991, p. 26). The various elements of space all operate together:

The perceived–conceived–lived triad . . . loses all force if it is treated as an

abstract ‘model’. If it cannot grasp the concrete (as distinct from the
‘immediate’), then its import is severely limited, amounting to no more than
that of one ideological mediation among others. (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 40)

Lefebvre reminds us that the mediation between the spatial elements need not be, and
most often is not, consistent. This, of course, is apparent within the capitalist
production of space whereby certain conceptions are predominant. Here, the relations
between Heidegger and Lefebvre again become apparent. It was Heidegger’s distaste
for the mediating and abstractive impact of modern technological society that drew him
to develop an ‘authentic’ notion of dwelling. For Lefebvre, capitalist society has made
similar inroads into representational space. Though he defines representational space as
(still) alive: ‘. . . it speaks. It has an affective kernel or centre: Ego, bed, bedroom,
dwelling, house; or: space, church, graveyard. It embraces the loci of passion, of
action and of lived situations’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 42). He continues on by
 230 M. Davidson

identifying the spread of abstract space with commodification: ‘Capitalism and

neocapitalism have produced abstract space, which includes the ‘‘world of commod-
ities’’, its ‘‘logic’’ and its worldwide strategies, as well as the power of money and that of
the political state’ (1991, p. 53).
It is the dialectical relations between aspects of the spatial triad that therefore
concern Lefebvre: ‘Today, more than ever, the class struggle is inscribed in space.
Indeed, it is that struggle alone which prevents abstract space from taking over the
whole planet and papering over all difference’ (1991, p. 55). Importantly, however,
Lefebvre sees the capitalist hegemony of abstract space operating covertly:

Abstract space works in a highly complex way. It has something of a dialogue

about it, in that it implies a tacit agreement, a non-aggression pact . . . A space
of this kind presupposes the existence of a ‘spatial economy’ closely allied,
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

though not identical, to the verbal economy . . . there is to be no fighting over

who should occupy a particular spot . . . This attitude entails in turn a logic and
a strategy of property in space: ‘place and things belonging to you do not
belong to me’. (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 56–57)

Lefebvre goes on to directly contrast this to communal and shared spaces that
(re)constitute different social relations. His point is that each individual confronts a
‘pre-existence of space conditions’ (1991, p. 57) and this, in turn, conditions the
subject. Consequently, and using the example of the Marais district in central Paris,
for Lefebvre spaces of class struggle have been continually destroyed by the
bourgeoisie to restrict a certain mode of (spatial) conditioning. Can we not extend
this example to understand the gentrifying transformation of working class
neighbourhoods under various urban policy programmes (Smith, 2002) over the
past decade where various subjectivities have been targeted for conditioning? For
Lefebvre, the challenging of capitalism’s abstraction therefore pivots on an
alternative production of space:

By seeking to point the way towards a different space, towards a space of a

different (social) life and of a different mode of production, this project
straddles the breach between science and utopia, reality and ideality, conceived
and lived. It aspires to surmount these oppositions by exploring the dialectical
relationship between ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’, and this both objectively and
subjectively. (1991, p. 60)

Conclusion: Towards a Re-spatialised Theory of Displacement

There are two implications I want to draw from Lefebvre’s conception of space for
the study of gentrification-related displacement. First, Lefebvre’s emphasis on
abstract space and its utility within/for the capitalist city warns against the pure
critique of displacement upon this terrain. This, I claim, represents a theoretical
space where Heidegger’s ontological emphasis on Being, and its relationships to
subject and place (Elden, 2004a; Malpas, 2007), is of vital importance. Second, the
implications of Lefebvre’s philosophy of space mean that empirical posturing over
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 231

the extent, and indeed pure occurrence, of displacement within the gentrification
literature has to be provided with a more adequate—one might say, through relating
Heidegger and Lefebvre, ‘placed’—conception of space. By this, I mean that the
critique of the loss of space/place associated with displacement requires a
philosophical underpinning that asserts the importance of space to Being. Without
such a basis, the assertion of the ‘right to space’ (Hartman, 1984) can be said to
subject Being (and space) to the same commodification that allows gentrification and
displacement to prosper in the first place (Lefebvre, 2003).
Lefebvre states: ‘Social relations, which are concrete abstractions, have no real
existence save in and through space. Their underpinning is spatial. In each particular
case, the connection between this underpinning and the relations it supports calls for
analysis’ (1991, p. 404). Here Lefebvre points towards the web of spatiality that
social relations are bound in. For Lefebvre then, the socio-spatial dialectic is an
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

essential part of capitalism, and by extension the capitalist city. As a consequence of

this insight he argues that the Western metaphysics of Descartes, and the particular
conception of space associated with this, require abandonment (Lefebvre, 2003,
pp. 406–408): ‘The transition here considered is characterized first of all by its
contradictions: contradictions between (economic) growth and (social) development,
between the social and the politics, between power and knowledge (connaissance),
and between abstract and differential space’ (2003, p. 408). In the alterative
(production of) space, Lefebvre sees ‘a shift from domination to appropriation, and
the primacy of use over exchange’ (2003, p. 410).
While Lefebvre is vague with regards to what the particulars of this transition
might look like, his critique can directly inform our understanding of displacement.
This can begin with a recognition of the social utility of ‘home’ and
‘neighbourhood’ (see Tuan, 1977); something which is so often absent from
discussion of displacement. In this sense, the conception of displacement as out-
migration becomes inadequate and the preservation of space as a political goal
holds no guarantee of protecting place. Here then, Hartman’s (1984) call for the
‘right to stay put’ requires extension. It must also encompass the right to (make)
place; the right to dwell. These, of course, can—as Heidegger and Lefebvre argue—
be denigrated or destroyed even if one stays in a particular space. The protection
and appropriation of (abstract) space must therefore be accompanied by the ability
to enact/produce space. We can therefore see why Lefebvre endorses Heidegger, in
the same breath as criticising his [at least in Being and Time (see Malpas, 2007)]
elevation of time over space, by stating: ‘[S]uch quasi-tautological propositions add
little to Heidegger’s admirable if enigmatic formulation according to which
‘‘Dwelling is the basic character of Being in keeping with which mortals exist’’’
(1991, p. 122).
For both Heidegger (1971) and Lefebvre (1991, 2008, pp. 140, 169), everyday life
therefore becomes a key site of politics [albeit with radically different interpreta-
tions (Zizek, 2006)] and both see it as increasingly under assault by modern/
capitalist socio-spatiality. Both want to (re)introduce the spatial notion of poetic
dwelling (Elden, 2004a, p. 96). To view space—and consequently displacement—
through the conceived and abstract lenses alone therefore presents both a
philosophical and political problem. In reference to the former, the engrained
debate over the measurement and extent of displacement as out-migration leaves
 232 M. Davidson

important aspects of space silenced; aspects which are themselves, as Heidegger’s

ontology so powerfully demonstrates, central to the phenomenological subject.
And in regards to the latter, without a claim for an alternative socio-spatiality that
is not continuously understood and dictated by abstractive Cartesian under-
standings of space, we have to question the extent to which a political challenge to
the very causes of displacement is possible (Lefebvre, 1991). In this sense, the case
against displacement must be accompanied by a call for the ‘right to place’ and the
‘right to dwell’. As Lefebvre’s spatial triad sets out, the protection of (spatial)
commodity in the face of the world of commodities is unlikely to provide an
adequate political basis.
If we return to 1520 Sedgwick we can therefore see why both former and current
tenants and members of the community are mobilising to get the building a heritage
listing. It is not simply that (abstract and commodified) space is being threatened by
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

capital and that, as a result, current tenants who are likely to face rent hikes
(although these are important!) are attempting to maintain location. The efforts of
those completely detached from the economic relations bound up in the withdrawal
of Mitchell–Lama status cannot be explained via such commodity relations. Nor can
the efforts to preserve the communal meeting place within the building in its current
capacity be explained as a pure space claim; especially given this preservation is
unlikely to be accompanied by tenancy protection. Rather, what is vividly
demonstrated by this community mobilisation are the various social relations
bound up in (urban) space and, importantly, the vital role these play in the attempt
to create place and dwell. Threats of (physical) relocation are therefore only part of
this displacement process. The loss of place threatened by the commodifying actions
of the building’s owners also promises to unravel the socio-spatial relations that
shape those subjects enacted in the dialectic.

Notes
1
Derrida, in describing the operation of ‘spatial metaphors’ argues: ‘Before being a rhetorical
procedure within language, metaphor would be the emergence of language itself. And philosophy is
the only language; in the best of cases . . . philosophy can only speak it, state the metaphor itself,
which amounts to thinking the metaphor within the silent horizon of the nonmetaphor:
Being . . . one can write by crossing out, by crossing out what already has been crossed out: for
crossing out writes, still draws in space’ (2001, p. 140).
2
Here Derrida’s notion that particular spatial metaphors act to structure epistemology is evident,
and similar to how Wilken (2007) identifies particular notions of space/place shaping under-
standings of communication technologies.
3
This is the principle connection, based upon a shared critique of Descartes, between Heidegger’s
and Lefebvre’s understandings of space.
4
While it is not the intention here to define each and their relations, it is important to recognise that
Lefebvre’s spatial triad (and in particular lived space; 1991, pp. 3, 35) relates closely with a
Heideggerian ‘place’ (Malpas, 1999, 2007). However, as the confrontation between Sartre and
Lefebvre over Being and Nothingness demonstrates, there is no simple equivalence.
5
Here, it is possible to say ‘place-based thinking’ (Malpas, 2007) is subsumed within a broader
framework that incorporates capitalism’s necessary production of abstract (commodified) space.
6
A notable exception to this has been Chris Allen’s (2008) recent work on housing renewal
programmes in the UK.
 Displacement, Space and Dwelling 233

References
Allen, C. (2008) Housing Market Renewal and Social Class (London: Routledge).
Atkinson, R. (2000) The hidden costs of gentrification: displacement in Central London, Journal of
Housing and the Built Environment, 15(4), pp. 307–326.
Boddy, M. (2007) Designer neighbourhoods: new-build residential development in nonmetropolitan UK
cities—the case of Bristol, Environment and Planning A, 39(1), pp. 86–105.
Bridge, G. (2001) Bourdieu, rational action and the time–space strategy of gentrification, Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, 26(2), pp. 205–216.
Brodsky-Lacour, C. (1996) Lines of Thought: Discourse, Architectonics and the Origins of Modern
Philosophy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
Butler, T. (2007) For gentrification?, Environment and Planning A, 39(1), pp. 162–181.
Butler, T. & Robson, G. (2003) London Calling: The Middle Classes and the Re-making of Inner London
(Oxford: Berg).
Casey, E. (1998) The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Davidson, M. (2007) Gentrification as global habitat: a process of class construction or corporate
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

creation?, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(4), pp. 490–506.

Davidson, M. & Lees, L. (2005) New-build ‘gentrification’ and London’s riverside renaissance,
Environment and Planning A, 37(7), pp. 1165–1190.
DeLuca, K. (2005) Thinking with Heidegger: rethinking environmental theory and practice, Ethics and the
Environment, 10(11), pp. 67–87.
Derrida, J. (1997) Of Grammatology (trans. G. Spivak) (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).
Derrida, J. (2000) Demeure: Fiction and Testimony (trans. E. Rottenburg) (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press).
Derrida, J. (2001) Writing and Difference (trans. A. Bass) (London: Routledge).
Elden, S. (2003) Taking the measure of the Beiträge: Heidegger, National Socialism and the calculation of
the political, European Journal of Political Theory, 2(1), pp. 35–56.
Elden, S. (2004a) Between Marx and Heidegger: politics, philosophy and Lefebvre’s, The Production of
Space, Antipode, 39(1), pp. 821–845.
Elden, S. (2004b) Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible (London: Continuum).
Elden, S. (2005) Contributions to geography? The spaces of Heidegger’s Beiträge, Environment and
Planning D: Society and Space, 23(6), pp. 811–827.
Fraser, J. (2004) Beyond gentrification: mobilizing communities and claiming space, Urban Geography,
25(5), pp. 437–457.
Freeman, L. (2005) Displacement or succession? Residential mobility in gentrifying neighborhoods, Urban
Affairs Review, 40(4), pp. 463–491.
Freeman, L. (2006) There Goes the ’Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up (Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press).
Freeman, L. & Braconi, F. (2004) Gentrification and displacement: New York City in the 1990s, Journal
of the American Planning Association, 70(1), pp. 39–52.
Hamnett, C. (1991) The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification, Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers, 16(5), pp. 173–189.
Hamnett, C. (1992) Gentrifiers or lemmings? A response to Neil Smith, Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers, 17(1), pp. 116–119.
Hamnett, C. (1994) Socio-economic change in London: professionalisation not polarisation, Built
Environment, 20(3), pp. 192–203.
Hamnett, C. (2003) Gentrification and the middle-class remaking of Inner London, 1961–2001, Urban
Studies, 40(12), pp. 2401–2426.
Hamnett, C. & Whitelegg, A. (2007) From industrial to post industrial uses: the loft conversion market in
London, Environment and Planning A, 39(1), pp. 106–124.
Hartman, C. (1979) Comment on neighbourhood revitalization and displacement: a review of the
evidence, Journal of the American Planning Association, 45(5), pp. 488–491.
Hartman, C. (1984/2002) Right to stay put. Reprinted in: Between Eminence and Notoriety
(New Brunswick: CUPR Press).
Heidegger, M. (1962) [1927] Being and Time (trans. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson) (Oxford: Blackwell).
Heidegger, M. (1971) Poetry, Language, Thought (trans. A Hofstader) (New York: Harper & Row).
 234 M. Davidson

Heidegger, M. (1982) The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (trans. A Hofstadter) (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press).
Heidegger, M. (1993) in: D. Krell (Ed.) Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins).
Lees, L. (2007) Progress in gentrification?, Environment and Planning A, 39(1), pp. 228–234.
Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space (trans. D. Nicolson-Smith) (Oxford: Blackwell).
Lefebvre, H. (2003) The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press).
Lefebvre, H. (2008) Critique of Everyday Life: Volume 1 (trans. J. Moore) (London: Verso).
LeGates, R. & Hartman, C. (1986) The anatomy of displacement in the United States, in: N. Smith &
P. Williams (Eds) Gentrification of the City (London: Unwin Hyman).
Lucy, N. (1995) Debating Derrida (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press).
Malpas, J. (1999) Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Malpas, J. (2007) Heidegger’s Topology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Marcuse, P. (1985) To control gentrification: anti-displacement zoning and planning for stable residential
districts, Review of Law and Social Change, 13(4), pp. 931–945.
McKinnish, T., Walsh, R. & White, T. (2008) Who Gentrifies Low Income Neighbourhoods? (Center for
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 02:02 16 June 2009

Economic Studies, US Census Bureau).

Newman, K. & Wyly, E. (2006) The right to stay put, revisited: gentrification and resistance to
displacement in New York City, Urban Studies, 43(1), pp. 1–35.
Palen, J. & London, B. (Eds) (1984) Gentrification, Displacement and Neighbourhood Revitalization
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press).
Poggeler, O. (1989) Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking (trans. D. Magurshak & S. Barber) (New Jersey:
Humanities Press).
Protevi, J. (1994) Time and Exteriority: Aristotle, Heidegger, Derrida (Lewisburg: Bucknell University
Press).
Relph, E. (1976) Place and Placelessness (London: Routledge).
Slater, T. (2006) The eviction of critical perspectives from gentrification research, International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research, 30(4), pp. 737–757.
Smith, N. (1979) Toward a theory of gentrification: a back to the city movement by capital not people,
Journal of the American Planning Association, 45(October), pp. 538–548.
Smith, N. (2002) New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy, Antipode, 34(3),
pp. 427–450.
Spivak, G. (1997) Translators’ preface, in: J. Derrida (1997) Of Grammatology, pp. ix–ixxxvii (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).
Sumka, H. (1979) Neighbourhood revitalization and displacement. A review of the evidence, Journal of
the American Planning Association, 45(5), pp. 480–487.
Taylor, P. (1999) Places, spaces and Macy’s: place–space tensions in the political geography of
modernities, Progress in Human Geography, 23(1), pp. 7–26.
Tuan, Y. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press).
Vigdor, J. (2002) Does gentrification harm the poor?, Brookings–Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs,
pp. 133–182.
Wacquant, L. (2008) Relocating gentrification: the working class, science and the state in recent urban
research, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(1), pp. 198–205.
Wigley, M. (1995) The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Wilken, R. (2007) The haunting affect of place in the discourse of the virtual, Ethics, Place and
Environment, 10(1), pp. 49–63.
Zizek, S. (1999) The Ticklish Subject (London: Verso).
Zizek, S. (2006) The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

View publication stats