Unequal City Hamnett, Chris
2003, 20040601, 2004-06-01, 20020101, 20030101
eBook
Unequal City examines some of the dramatic economic and social changes that have taken place in London over the last forty years. It describes how London's changing industrial structure, particularly ...the shift from an industrial to a services-based city, and the associated changes in occupational class structure and in the structure of earnings and incomes, have worked through to the housing market and the gentrification of large parts of inner London. Unequal City relates to the literature on global cities. The book has a wide sweep and summarises a wide range of literature on occupational and industrial change, earnings and incomes and the housing market and gentrification. It provides a wealth of original data, figures, maps and tables and will be a valuable reference for anyone interested in the changes that have reshaped the social structure of London in recent decades.
This paper reviews the debates over the explanation of gentrification and argues that gentrification is best explained as the social and spatial manifestation of the transition from an industrial to ...a post-industrial economy based on financial, business and creative services, with associated changes in the nature and location of work, in the occupational class structure, earnings and incomes and the structure of the housing market. The paper sets out the links between these changes in the London context. It also examines the evidence for gentrification-induced displacement in London, arguing that it may be more appropriate to view the process partly as one of replacement.
This paper discusses the links between the growth of high incomes and gentrification in inner London on the homeownership market. It examines changes in average London house prices by borough using ...data from 1995 to 2006. It shows that while the top priced boroughs in 1995 were still at the top of the distribution in 2006, and the lowest priced boroughs were still at the bottom, there has been a catching up process with some of the highest rates of price inflation in the lowest priced boroughs, and vice versa. It considers various explanations for these changes and outlines the concept of spatially displaced demand from the expensive boroughs to help explain price rises in the cheaper boroughs.
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4.
Is Chinese urbanisation unique? Hamnett, Chris
Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland),
02/2020, Letnik:
57, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The future of cities in China is becoming increasingly important, not just within China but globally. China’s urban population has grown from about 200 million in 1980 to about 800 million or 59% in ...2018: that is about twice the total population of the USA and 1.5 times the total population of the EU. China has over 100 cities with over a million people. There are also more and more papers being written about urbanisation in China. However, urban development in China is very unlike urban development in the west or in many other developing countries. Despite the growth of a large, dynamic market sector, China is still a Communist country in terms of the pervasive and leading role of the party and the state. The question posed in this commentary is whether urbanisation in China is unique; or, to be more precise, whether the post-reform Chinese experience of urbanisation since around 1980 is so unusual that it constitutes an entirely unique case which lies outside conventional generalisations about urban change processes. This question links to recent discussions of comparative urbanism in which various scholars have grappled with questions about the generalisability of urban theory and experience. The tentative conclusion is that Chinese urbanisation may be unique and is certainly not easily subsumed into standard discussions about urban development and urban change.
中国城市的未来变得越来越重要，这不仅仅是对中国而言，对全球而言都是如此。中国的城市人口从1980年的2亿左右增长到2018年的8亿左右，即59%，是美国总人口的两倍，也是欧盟总人口的1.5倍。中国有100多个城市的人口超过100万。关于中国城市化的论文也越来越多。然而，中国的城市发展与西方（或许还有许多其他发展中国家）的城市发展非常不同。尽管中国有一个庞大而充满活力的市场部门，但就党和政府的普遍主导作用而言，中国仍然是一个共产主义国家。这篇评论中提出的问题是中国的城市化是否独一无二；或者，更准确地说，中国自1980年左右以来经历的改革后城市化是否如此不寻常，以至于构成了一个完全独特的案例，超出了对城市变革过程的常规概括。这个问题与最近关于比较城市化的讨论有关，在这种讨论中，许多学者都在努力解决关于城市理论和经验的普遍性的问题。我们的初步结论是，中国的城市化或许是独一无二的，肯定不容易被纳入关于城市发展和城市变革的标准讨论。
This paper addresses a simple, but very important, question. How has the occupational class structure of major world or global cities changed in recent decades? This has major social and theoretical ...implications given the claims made by Friedmann (1986) and Sassen (1991) regarding social polarisation in world or global cities. The paper outlines and compares three positions regarding the changing occupational class structure of world cities and of Western societies in general: professionalisation, proletarianisation and social polarisation. The paper does not provide original empirical evidence. Instead, it provides a wide-ranging overview of evidence from existing studies in a range of cities in both Global North and South over the last 50 years. It concludes that whereas professionalisation is common to most global cities, there is little evidence for proletarianisation, and that polarisation is a contingent outcome in certain cities at certain times. The claims for a common universal pattern are rejected and variations in national economic, political and social structure and policy are argued to be more important.
The changing class structure of cities has been a topic of considerable importance and debate for over a 150 years, since the industrial revolution created a large industrial proletariat in many ...western cities. But the rise of post-industrial society, the decline of the manufacturing industry, a shrinking industrial working class, and the growth of the professional and managerial class from the 1970s onwards has provoked fresh debate about this, as has the emergence of gentrification in many cities. This paper looks at the changing social class structure of London from 2001 to 2021 using data from the population Census. It shows that the higher professional and managerial class continued its long term growth after a pause in 2001–2011. But the number and proportions of small employers, the self-employed and routine workers have also grown. There is therefore continuing professionalisation but also ‘asymmetric polarisation’. The paper also examines the geography of social class change by borough over the period and shows that while the professional and managerial class grew in all boroughs, suggesting a gradual upward class change across London, it was highest in the most gentrified inner London boroughs. However, the percentage point growth of the self-employed and routine groups was generally higher in the mostly suburban boroughs where professional and managerial class percentage point change growth was smallest (and vice versa) which suggests an intensified social class sorting and divergence across London with the lower class groups growing most rapidly in suburban outer London where housing costs are less.
East London has undergone dramatic changes over the last 30 years, primarily as a result of London's large scale de-industrialisation and the rise in its financial sector. Large parts of inner East ...London remain deprived, but a once overwhelmingly white working class area is now home to a more complex and mobile class and ethnic mix. This topical book focuses on the aspirations of these different groups and the strategies they have pursued about where to live, driven in part by a concern to ensure a good education for their children. The book will be essential reading for students and academics in sociology, urban studies, geography and multicultural studies.
It is argued that many major Western cities have seen the conversion of centrally located commercial and industrial property to residential uses in recent years. This is seen as part of a wider ...process of change from industrial to postindustrial land uses and is a physical counterpart of the economic and occupational class transformation of these cities towards the growth of professional and managerial workers working in financial, business, and creative services. The paper focuses on loft conversions in Clerkenwell, adjacent to the City of London which are shown to be initiated by changes in the commercial property market, particularly the rise and fall of the secondary office market and the need to find alternative uses for commercial property. The apartments have been marketed in terms of their architectural distinction, their centrality and the social attributes of city-centre living. Their residents are professional and managerial workers with a strong orientation towards centrality, many of whom see themselves as pioneers of a new form of city-centre living.
This paper is a commentary and response to Anne Clerval's paper Gentrification and social classes in Paris, 1982-2008, which is published in this volume. While agreeing with many of her conclusions ...regarding social class change and gentrification in Paris, and highlighting the parallels with London, the paper argues that both London and Paris have become more middle class cities in the last 40-50 years, not wholly middle-class cities. Second, it argues that Clerval is wrong to suggest that gentrification is the principal cause of social class change in Paris. The causation is likely to be the other way round. Third, it argues that Clerval is wrong to criticize the replacement thesis as ideological and she herself accepts that displacement and replacement go hand in hand. But overall, her paper raises a number of stimulating and important issues regarding the relationships between urban economic change and gentrification.
Before commenting on the papers in this special issue it is important to put them in a wider context: the changing long term structure of the Chinese housing market and its characteristics. The ...modern housing market in China only effectively started in 1998 with the end of the previous comprehensive social rented housing system with its reliance on work units, housing allocation and low rents and the introduction of a market system of housing production, consumption and exchange. Almost all social housing was subsequently sold to its tenants. So, China has had a market housing system for just 30 years but during this period it has moved from about 100% social rental to 80% home ownership: a remarkable transformation.
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