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Symbolic Gentrification
Summative Essay for “The Urban Revolution” Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros February 2012
Task The aim of this essay is to give you an opportunity to demonstrate in-depth and critical knowledge of key debates raised in the course. Demonstrating critical knowledge means formulating an interpretation and argument that goes beyond what is presented in lectures and readings. Write an essay responding to an essay question that you yourself devise based on the course material. This option gives you the freedom to explore an area of particular interest to you, to make connections across topics, or to incorporate course material into ideas you have for future research. Lenth 2000 words Question To what extend gentrification is a useful concept to explain the homogenization of urban experiences? Support your argument with an specific example or a case study.
Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros September 2012 Master in City Design and Social Science 2011-2012 London School of Economics and Political Science All images are the author’s own unless otherwise stated. Copyright (c) 2012 Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros. This work is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To see a copy of this license, refer to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Symbolic Gentrification
Symbolic Gentrification The concept of gentrification could be understood as the explanation of processes of displacement of certain disempowered classes as a consequence of capital investment for production of space. During the last 50 years, the academic literature has revisited it from various points of view, from specific discrete city centre contexts in the beginning of the 60’s (Glass 1964), passing through broader explanations of urban spatial redevelopment processes of cities in the new global economic (Smith 2002), to more abstract approaches in recent years (Ghertner 2011). For the purpose of this essay, this latter angle will help us understanding the concept from a more metaphorical point of view. In the following lines, the intention is to describe how the processes production of symbols and images which portrait the city in a tourist urban context, relates to the sense of dispossession of its inhabitants, and how that could be explained through the concept of gentrification. Here, the important role played by the ‘symbolic economy’ (Zukin 1995) in the development of tourist cities and the relationship between the production of a marketable image and the city’s power structures will draw the discussion’s background. In developing an understanding of the topic, implications between urban tourism development and city marketing, and the consequences they have in the urban experiences and landscapes will be shown. Barcelona’s urban development in the past 30 years will be a reference for the debate. In the early 1960’s, the concept of gentrification was introduced by Ruth Glass to explain the new spatial processes of discrete urban redevelopment occurring in the urban centric areas of some Western cities when relatively deprived neighbourhoods were regenerated into more affluent standards (1964). The gentrification was understood as a process of inward investment in derelict areas occurring when rent gap was big enough to take the risk to invest (Smith 1979). In the beginning, these gentrification processes were identified as driven by residential demand of affluent classes coming ‘back to the city’ centre and generating displacement of local working-class residents. Much literature has been written since these early contributions. Since then the concept of gentrification has been steadily broadening its scope to explain urban development in general and urban renewal and urban regeneration processes in particular. Smith (1979, 1982, 2002) has revisited several times his original understanding of the concept of gentrification in order to develop a more general theory to explain the processes of urban development in cities and its relation to the new global economic framework, addressing the importance of cities in the relationship between local and global politics. Furthermore, nowadays, the concept of gentrification has become so open that one could pose the question if it is still useful to explain specific urban experiences. Gentrification could be understood as one way of explaining urban development processes in general, and, accordingly, it would lose it specific meaning. However, the idea behind the concept of gentrification -namely, the process of displacement occurring as a consequence of capital investment- it is still useful as a metaphorical approach to non-spatial issues. In this line, Ghertner (2011) provides an interesting example on how local political spaces have been gentrified in the context of Delhi by the upper-class affluent residents and politics, displacing and excluding the poor from the political decisions. In the debate of gentrification, two different perspectives of how these processes are enacted have been discussed, trying to address the questions of who are the actors and for whom it is the city redeveloped: from the residential driven consumption-side 1
Symbolic Gentrification
perspective, to the developer-governmental production-side ones. There has not been a consensus whether is the former or the latter the main actor in the play. In fact, some explanations of these processes point out that in certain cases both sides are influential and interwoven (Fox Gotham 2005, García Herrera, Smith and Mejías Vera 2007). However, for the purpose of this essay, and its particular approach to urban tourism development, I will focus in the production-side of the concept as I think could be better applied to the field. From the beginning of the 70’s, the promotion of the neo-liberal economy has been ‘hollowing out’ the state by ‘transfer[ing] powers previously exercised by national states upwards to supra-regional or international bodies [and] downwards to regional or local states’(Jessop 2000, p.352). This tendency has given cities a major role in global and national economies. The global-local dependency has fostered new ways of competition in the ‘Global Catwalk’ among world cities (Degen 2003), and also specialization has been promoted in the second row of these so-called ‘world class cities’. As such, one of these specializations could be urban tourism and its related development. Barcelona has been one interesting example of this kind of development in the past 30 years in Southern Europe, and, as such, an interesting supporting case study for this essay. According to Garcia Herrera, Smith and Mejías Vera, ‘the appeal of tourism is the desire to witness and experience places different from one’s home’ (2007, p.277). It could be argued that urban tourism development is a paradoxical force which, even if on one hand, promotes ‘the production of local difference [...] of the exotic and the unique’ (Fox Gotham 2005, p.1100), on the other, it ‘is just as powerful a force for homogeneity and standardization’(Garcia Herrera, Smith and Mejías Vera 2007, p.279) and it ‘run[s] the risk of diluting the geographical distinctiveness that makes [it] attractive in the first place’ (ibid, p. 277). The homogenization of city centres as open shopping malls, where Gucci, Loewe or Zara stores can be found in every single urban tourist centre, and the promotion of city centres as nostalgic theme parks and heritage frozen environments has led tourist cities to a standardization of their urban experience. These experiences ‘become ‘hyperreal’, with the production of illusions ‘overriding’ descriptions of ‘reality’ (Baudrillard 1983, in Fox Gotham 2005, p.1111). Tourism is seen today as a powerful economic force and a strong investment attractor for cities. Fox Gotham claims that tourism is ‘a way of importing, spending and exporting the tax burden to generate the revenue to facilitate urban redevelopment’ (2005, p.1105). In the tourist city, the ‘symbolic economy’ plays a crucial role in the processes of production (Zukin 1995). She suggests that two different systems of production drive this kind of economy: first, the production of space as a force for promotion of fix capital investment, related to real-state and the physical built environment; second, the production of symbols, ‘which constructs both a currency of commercial exchange and a language of social identity’ (ibid, p.23). Thus, the ‘symbolic economy’ is based both in physical artefacts but also in ‘abstract products’, images of unreal urban experiences, used as ‘financial instruments’ (Zukin 1998, p.826) and sold as real for the sake of capital investment. As we have seen, in these processes of production, the production of an image establishes a relationship between these urban ‘exotic’ appealing experiences and the ‘symbolic economy’ of the city. In the processes of production of the symbolic city, the actors involved and the methods of image production have to be addressed. The producers of the symbols are not only the ‘gentries’ and governmental or corporate agents, but also the media, arts and cultural institutions. The methods and tools used for marketing the 2
Symbolic Gentrification
city range from tourist guides, leaflets and promotional material, films and marketing campaigns, to construction of new museums and urban redevelopment schemes. Both actors and methods play a crucial role in the construction of the image, ‘promoting desire and fantasy, art and design directed to the production of desirable tourist experiences’ (Fox Gotham 2005, p.1110). An interesting example of these in Barcelona was ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona‘ Allen’s film - a promotion of a perfect superlative tourist experience of a postmodern city where fiesta and passion were mixed with art, sun and beach promoted and facilitated by the municipal government and its cultural institutions. These products are used by the city to promote new investment. The tourist city sponsors its symbolic image. The production of the city identity provides the city its own brand. Barcelona, from the early 80’s has promoted a world-known urban development model, the ‘Barcelona’s model’, a bustling dense urban fabric with hard plazas, cafes and lively streets. Moreover, in recent years, this urban model has developed into urban brand. Nowadays, design, tourism and culture are directly linked with the name of Barcelona. All these strategies have had a great influence in tourism and, hence in the touristic offer the city has promoted and provided. As a consequence, the number of tourist accommodations from 1992 to 2010 has almost doubled. Even more, during the last two decades the number of tourists visiting the city has increased by 3.5 times, from the 4 million overnights in 1992 to over 14 million in 2010 (Ajuntament de Barcelona 2011). However, this superlative development of tourism has provoked the lost of uniqueness and the homogenization of the urban experience. As Zukin argues, ‘competition among corporations and cities has led to a multiplicity of standardised attractions that reduce the uniqueness of urban identities even while claims of uniqueness grow more intense’ (1998, p.837). The case of New Orleans French Quarter can be brought as a parallel example where tourism gentrification has transformed radically the original urban environment. There, studied by Fox Gotham, ‘some residents claim[ed] that increasing rent and commercial homogenisation m[ight] be wiping out the very charm, character and distinctiveness that ha[d] historically made the French Quarter appealing.’ (2005, p.1113). In Barcelona, all these urban improvements and changes have also led to a sense of dispossession among residents (Borja 2009). The proliferation of chain stores, firms, ‘high-priced boutiques’ and souvenir shops, selling from the F.C. Barcelona’s T-shirt to a Mexican hat, have diluted the urban experience in a dull amalgam of bodies looking for bargains. As Degen puts it, ‘the ‘compulsive neutralization’ in which the multi-sensory experience of place is quieted in favour of a visual experience’ (2003, p.870), and it has completely simplified the urban experience. In the centre of the city, the radical transformation of certain derelict parts has had contradictory results. On one hand, the urban redevelopment has changed the quality of the urban fabric, and has allowed accessibility to these areas, revalorizing its image from ‘no-go’ areas to ‘let’s-go’ areas. However, this homogenization of the city has provoked a dilution of public life (Degen 2003) and, as a consequence, a sense of dispossession from the residents, both from the city and the neighbourhood. The promotion of tourist related uses and events has also led to a disconnection to the everyday life experience of the city. According to Degen, through processes of production of the city and particular methods of control, the promotion of the ‘urban regeneration processes displace past and current alternative uses and experiences’ (2003, p.870, emphasis added). 3
Symbolic Gentrification
Ultimately, I think, the original pretention to improve some of these neighbourhoods has ended up pulling apart the citizens from the access to production of symbols and, thus, from the decision-making processes. The access to the power structures of this production processes is key in the tourist city. Gentrification, in this context, could mean the displacement of the citizens from the political and communication arenas where the image of the city is produced. The sense of dispossession represents the distance between the symbolic image produced by the empowered and the image of the imagined city by the disempowered. Taken together, if the understanding of gentrification is abstracted from its specific spatial meaning and broaden even more, I think analysis through this concept is still valuable. It can be suggested that, seen as parallel processes, the production of symbols provokes sense of dispossession as much as the production of space leads to displacement. However, even if I cannot argue that the processes of image production are gentrification itself, I am confident enough to support the idea that gentrification is a useful concept to explain some of these processes through borrowing its spatial ideas.
Bibliography and references Ajuntament de Barcelona (2011) ‘Cap. 13. Turisme’, Anuari Estadístic de la Ciutat de Barcelona 2011. Barcelona. Allen, W. (2008) Vicky Cristina Barcelona [film]. USA-Spain: Mediapro. Borja, J. (2009) Luces y Sombras del Urbanismo en Barcelona. Editorial UOC, Barcelona. Degen, M. (2003) ‘Fighting for the Global Catwalk: Formalizing Public Life in Castlefield (Manchester) and Diluting Public Life in el Raval (Barcelona)’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(4), 867-880. Fox Gotham, K. (2005) ‘Tourism gentrification: The case of New Orleans’ Vieux Carre (French Quarter)’ Urban Studies, 42, 1099-1121. García Herrera, L. M., Smith, N. and Mejías Vera, M. A. (2007) ‘Gentrification, displacemnt, and tourism in Santa cruz de Tenerife’ Urban Geography, 28(3), 276-298. Glass, R. (1964) London: Aspects of Change. London: Centre for Urban Studies and MacGibbon and Kee. Ghertner, D.A. (2011) ‘Gentrifying the state, gentrifying participation: Elite governance programs in Delhi,’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(3), 504-532. Jessop, B. (2000) ‘The Crisis of the National Spatio-Temporal Fix and the Tendential Ecological Dominance of Globalizing Capitalism.’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24(2), 323-360. 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(4), 538-548 Smith, N. (1982) ‘Gentrification and uneven development’ Economic Geography, 58(2), 139155. Smith, N. (2002) ‘New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy’ Antipode, 34, 427-450. Zukin, S. (1995) The cultures of cities. Blackwell, Oxford. Zukin, S. (1998) ‘Urban Lifestyles: Diversity and Standardisation in Space of Consumption’, Urban Studies, 35 (5-6), 825-839. 4