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Abstract

Recently a number of theorists argue that physical displacement as a result of gentrification ought to be morally rejected on the basis of the principle of personal autonomy: displacement violates the option to exercise “place-based” or “located life-plans.” What is adversely violated is the neighborhood as a spatial background condition for the ability to realize embedded pursuits. I argue that this attempt to morally value social attachments to a particular place as means (or resources) to realize plans, is unconvincing and subject to moral risk because it instrumentalizes social attachments instead of recognizing their intrinsic significance for those concerned. The paper provides an alternative account of urban justice that is able to accommodate respect for social attachments as a separate moral category, distinct from respect for personal autonomy.

Keywords

displacement gentrification occupancy rights personal autonomy social attachments recognition urban justice

I Introduction

Gentrification is the process of neighborhood change characterized by the influx of relatively affluent residents accompanied by rising rents and prices of real-estate, often displacement of lower-income groups, and a general transformation of the built environment. Although gentrification has generated a vast body of social-scientific literature concerning its causes and effects, by contrast, there is relatively little work on the moral aspects of this growing phenomenon in our cities today.

Yet recently, a number of theorists argue that physical displacement of inhabitants as a result of gentrification ought to be morally rejected on the basis of the principle of personal autonomy broadly conceived: displacement violates the option to exercise “place-based” or “located life-plans” (Bonotti and Barnhill, 2022; Dawkins, 2023; cf. Draper, 2024; Huber and Wolkenstein, 2018; Hofmann, 2020; Kohn, 2016; Lloyd, 2023; Putnam, 2021). To the extent that a person has projects or plans that are key to his or her well-being and that depend on the immediate context of a specific place, that person is able to justifiably assert “occupancy rights” against a forced eviction or displacement (Stilz, 2013). Such rights give the holder a publicly recognized pro tanto claim to stay put, that is: removal is a moral wrong unless there are sufficiently weighty reasons to justify it.

I will argue that this plan-based account of occupancy rights is deeply problematic for several reasons. Because there is no general consensus on the precise meaning of the concept of gentrification (Knieriem, 2023), I will start with a brief clarification (§ 2). Then, I will pay attention to the key question how a justice perspective is able to enrich existing, often neo-Marxist interpretations (§ 3). This is followed by an outline of the conceptual origins of the plan-based account of occupancy rights, which concern indigenous land rights (§ 4). The next step discusses how this moral logic recently has been applied to the urban frame regarding gentrification (§ 5). The attempt to morally value social attachments as means to exercise plans, however, is phenomenologically and empirically unconvincing because it instrumentalizes social attachments (§ 6). This strategy is not without its risks, because instead of protecting particular social attachments themselves as key to a person’s well-being, these attachments are seen as instruments that in principle could be replaced (§ 7). In the last section, I will argue on the basis of an alternative conception of urban justice, that this approach in the end is not only unconvincing and subject to moral risk, but also unnecessary (§ 8).

II The concept of gentrification

Gentrification in a formula is the production of urban space for progressively more affluent users (Hackworth, 2002: 815). Hackworth’s clarification for this compact formulation is that the classic definition wrongly emphasizes direct displacement while “displacement or replacement is often neither direct nor immediate, but the process remains ‘gentrification’ because the space is being transformed for more affluent users” (2002: 839). What follows is my own interpretation of gentrification on the basis of this definition.

Let me clarify its different elements. “Urban space” refers firstly to the physical dimension of a city in terms of a certain configuration of buildings, streets, plazas, parks, modes of transport and so on. This aspect of space is sometimes referred to as “geometrical space”; space in the literal meaning of physical and measurable properties. But the notion “urban space” also encompasses a socio-cultural dimension in that this physical configuration is perceived and experienced in a certain way by city-dwellers. In other words, to borrow a term of Lefebvre, this aspect concerns space as “lived” in day-to-day routines as a meaningful but mostly tacit background of understanding and orientation (Lefebvre, 1991).

There is an expressive dimension to this latter aspect of space. Physical space and the way it is being used and maintained can be seen as the embodiment of symbolic significance. If a certain neighborhood is perceived by its inhabitants as badly maintained and neglected, that space is likely to express a sense of indifference or even rejection by those in power (Van Leeuwen, 2022). Other, more advantaged, groups in the city might conceive of that area in a very different way: as real estate with potential profit margins or as authentic living space ready to upgrade. In this sense, urban space is complex, non-homogenous and—especially in gentrified neighborhoods—contested (cf. Harvey, 1973: 35).

If gentrification means that space is produced in a particular way, namely, for the benefit of more affluent users, we need to clarify “affluency” in the definition. Ruth Glass famously coined the term “gentrification” in order to describe how working-class quarters in London were increasingly “invaded by the middle classes—upper and lower” and how this demographic transformation entailed also a spatial transformation, namely, the upgrading of previously run-down urban neighborhoods through the renovation and restoration of old buildings and the construction of new ones (Glass, 1964: xviii). So when a neighborhood is “gentrified” it means that people from a relatively higher socio-economic class move in and gradually change its social and spatial composition. There is an economic as well as a social-class aspect to this transformation. The influx of affluent citizens typically is accompanied by rising costs of living for incumbent residents, given that the increased market value of real estate will lead to higher rents and property taxes. Furthermore, new shops and services that cater to the needs of the new neighborhood dwellers will often be more expensive. In many cases, differences in education and social standing compound these economic differences that original inhabitants become painfully aware of. From their point of view, new apartment blocks and boutiques and other amenities do not just take up physical space that threatens to displace incumbent neighborhood dwellers and shopkeepers, but they are also a reminder of their relatively low social and economic standing (Lees et al., 2008: 18–19, 261–262; Dikeç, 2017: 12). Such physical structures are not just objectively there in geometrical space, but they also express the class difference as a daily reminder hard-wired in the city.

I’ve mentioned “displacement” in passing; yet, the most contentious element of this production of space through gentrification is that it can lead to the socio-cultural and physical displacement of the original neighborhood dwellers. Socio-cultural displacement, the sense of becoming estranged from one’s neighborhood, can be the sole effect of a radical transformation of space as a result of gentrification. People can be displaced without spatial dislocation, namely, by no longer being able to identify with a place (Davidson, 2009; Marcuse, 1986).

Physical displacement can occur as an effect of the economic transformation. It has become almost a common place to say at this point that the extent to which this type of displacement actually occurs is “contested.” But allow me some observations in this regard. First, if gentrification is state-led and has the explicit goal of local dispersal through urban redevelopment (construction of new buildings in an urban area after demolishing the existing buildings), displacement typically will take place. Not all gentrification, after all, is a matter of “anonymous” market imperatives. Governments themselves increasingly and actively engage in gentrification, although they use euphemistic labels such as “urban renaissance,” “urban renewal” or “revitalization” (Lees et al., 2008). The strategy is to implement redevelopment projects that deconcentrate the urban poor by dispersing the residents in an attempt to reign in local social problems, like crime, vandalism, drug abuse and massive unemployment (Goetz, 2003; Uitermark et al., 2007). The premise is that spatial concentration of disadvantaged populations reinforces aspects of disadvantage (UTF report, 1999: 45). Second, if rents are unregulated and subject to steep rises as a result of increased demand (so-called “rent hikes”), displacement of lower-income groups is likely to happen (Atkinson, 2000; Diamond et al., 2019; Randle, 2020). Third, even if gentrification initially does not displace incumbent residents who choose to remain in the neighborhood because they welcome improved amenities that gentrification brings (Freeman and Braconi, 2004), the time frame of such studies might not be long enough to capture the relevant displacement (Newman and Wyly, 2006; Zuk et al., 2018). So indeed, displacement neither has to be “direct nor immediate.”

Going back to our definition of gentrification as the production of urban space for progressively more affluent users, the notion of “production” can thus be understood both in a governmental and non-governmental sense. If governments actively seek to pursue “revitalization” policies of dispersal, then the resulting changes in physical and social space are clearly institutional and deliberate. If gentrification, however, is more consumer driven, displacement can be the unintended effect of cumulative decisions by private actors and investors (Ley, 1994). In that scenario, the goal is typically not to push working-class people out of their neighborhood. In fact, the initial attraction of a certain locale is precisely the rich diversity of people there. In that case, the success of cities and neighborhoods to attract a new class of educated urbanites seeking “authentic” urban life, ironically runs the risk to drive out the very people who gave that locale its authentic and rich character, like immigrants, the working class and artists (Zukin, 2010).

III How to critically frame gentrification?

In the decades that gentrification has been studied by theorists who write in the tradition of critical urban theory and geography, critiques of gentrification are typically based more in critiques of capitalism than in theories of morality and justice (Brenner et al., 2011; Lefebvre, 1996; Hackworth, 2007; Harvey, 1973, 2012; o.a. Smith, 1996). Although there are exceptions to this—such as theorists who have emphasized the cultural dimension of gentrification (Butler, 1997; Ley, 1994) and theorists who have discussed such changes in terms of justice and injustice (Fainstein, 2010; Sundstrom, 2024; Wolff and de-Shalit, 2023)—state-led gentrification by policies of dispersal in this supply-side, neo-Marxist tradition tend to be interpreted as strategies to attract capital and invest it. Dispersal-policies in this vein can be seen as a cover-up of the real mechanism, namely, to “dump surplus capital” through large scale investments.

Moreover, in those cases where matters of harm of the displaced are concerned, the language is usually one of physical, psychological and class injury more than a vocabulary of morality and justice (Lees et al., 2008: ch. 6). Accordingly, gentrification comes with several negative consequences for the people who live in gentrifying areas. One consequence is the risk of eviction, incisively described by Desmond (2012). Another consequence is the loss of one’s place when the arrival of new, more affluent inhabitants changes a neighborhood, often including its ethnic and cultural composition (Rucks-Ahidiana, 2022; cf. Taylor, 1992). This may happen even when newcomers have a taste for diversity (Tissot, 2011, 2014) or want to protect the authentic nature of the neighborhood (Brown-Saracino, 2004, 2007). Long-term inhabitants may feel estranged from their neighborhood when they are confronted with class differences there (Valli, 2015).

The key question at this point is how a moral or justice perspective is able to enrich this understanding of gentrification? In order to properly interpret and evaluate what is at stake in socio-political conflicts between different stakeholders in gentrifying neighborhoods—such as conflicts between private real-estate developers, landlords, local governments wanting to upgrade, citizens aspiring to move to particular urban areas, and residents currently living there—the moral frame seems a key factor. Particularly from the vantage point of those on the receiving end of gentrification, namely, long-standing citizens and business owners, resistance to gentrification entails moral resentment that can only be properly understood as coming from a sense that due recognition at multiple levels has been denied. And justice implies that there should be a system in place that embodies such principles of recognition as well as offering a rational for them (see § 8). If people experience something as being harmful or constituting an injury, however, they imply that they experience something as a setback of their interests. Although this could overlap with the moral sphere, that is not necessarily the case (Feinberg, 1987: ch. 1). A shop owner can experience a setback of her interests by increased competition in the neighborhood, but this does not necessarily entail a moral claim that he or she has a right not to be competed against in the economic sphere. By “right” I mean a legitimate claim that entails a moral and/or legal obligation on the part of other people.

In addition, interests can be setback without anyone to blame. We can be harmed by natural disasters, but morality is not necessarily at stake here either, that is, unless such disasters are related to responsible actors. So the moral frame is only relevant where actors in the broadest sense of the term, including institutions, can be identified that are responsible for certain outcomes for citizens that turn out to be negative or positive.

Neo-Marxists tend to argue at this point that displacement-effects are simply inherent to a flawed economic system. So what is needed are structural transformations instead of justice-related policies that “only” ameliorate the disparities created by the free market, but do not challenge its underlying marginalization and exploitative conditions (Harvey, 2009; Marcuse, 2009). But even though it is true that gentrification might be induced to a large degree by a rather anonymous market dynamic that follows a logic of its own, the capitalist market-economy is not an autonomous realm, but rather is embedded in a highly regulated system of laws and norms (Honneth, 2003, 2014). Although distributive effects of market dynamics might not be fully explained in terms of recognition or a lack thereof (Fraser, 2003), political and legal institutions either violate or acknowledge the principles of justice for the way that they deal with those effects, and the degree to which markets are given leeway in the first place (Van Leeuwen, 2022). For the real-estate market, we can in particular think of zoning regulations, building codes, tax-incentive schemes for private developers, regulations concerning rent-stabilization and eviction, to name a few (see also § 8). We can debate to what extent these institutions are in reality a mere reflection of the interests of the bourgeoisie. But to the extent that they are, they are unjust and in need of reform (Fainstein, 2010: 40–42; 2009). The point is, these institutions in fact carry responsibility and so can meaningfully be evaluated from the justice point of view and that seems precisely what many inhabitants of gentrifying neighborhoods do.¹

Then the question is, what type of moral claims are most likely to play a role here amongst those who feel that their rights have been violated by such developments that threaten to displace them. The point of this paper is to argue that it is unlikely that feelings of moral resentment are related to an instrumental logic that is typical of a certain liberal frame, where only personal autonomy is morally relevant. It is more likely that people whose sense of place is undermined feel morally wronged because these social attachments are experienced as intrinsically, not just instrumentally valuable; that is, these attachments are experienced by them as valuable in and of themselves, not just as helpful means to achieve something else that is valuable (personal autonomy).

IV Plan-based occupancy rights and indigenous land rights

Before we consider the recent normative literature regarding gentrification-generated displacement, we must first take a step back and go to the main source of inspiration for it, namely, Anna Stilz’ work on occupancy rights for indigenous peoples. In 2013, Anna Stilz published the paper “Occupancy Rights and the Wrong of Removal?” (2013). Although the paper does not reflect on gentrification-based displacement, but on displacement of national minorities, like the Navajo Indians in North-America, this paper is the main source of the key idea that what’s morally wrong with the physical displacement of a social group is that their located life-plans are undermined. Margaret Moore’s argument in favor of the right to occupy traditional lands is also mentioned in this regard, but is less influential (Moore, 2015). Stilz’ Kantian approach to the right to occupancy, based on the moral importance of the individual’s ability to pursue her self-chosen project, is what the application to gentrification is mainly based on (Wells, 2022: 834). Moore’s approach explicitly rejects the individualist conception of occupancy rights and the idea that Indigenous people, who are connected historically to place, can be seen as “individual Life Planners” (Moore, 2020: 763).

Rights to occupancy with regard to a particular place are based, according to Stilz, on the importance of a set of particular options tied to a geographical place regarding activities that are considered to be fundamental to the well-being of those involved. “Occupancy rights” are rights grounded in the moral claim that a group of people have regarding the use of a particular geographical area, namely, the area that they reside in and in which they recreate, worship, go to school, have relationships and often also find employment.

Two words in this formulation are important, namely, “particular” and “use.” “Particular” because the territorial occupancy is structured in ways that cannot simply be replicated: it is a right that is connected to a specific area, “not to some general slice of territory somewhere in the world” (Stilz, 2013: 334). And “use” because the claims to occupancy are not property rights, but are grounded in the importance of such particular places for people’s “comprehensive pursuits” (Stilz, 2013: 335). Occupancy does not entail full ownership with a right to transfer, bequeath, and derive income. In fact, it is a very limited form of property based on the rights claim to use the territory as a physical space for one’s residence and important social practices. Hence, the reference to such plans as “located life-plans” (Stilz, 2013: 335). The particular location in this liberal logic is seen as a “condition” for plans: “territorially stable access to social relationships and practices is a necessary background condition for a wide variety of plans of life” (Stilz, 2013: 340, italics mine).

Although Stilz argues that occupancy rights should be interpreted as individual rights instead of collective rights, these plans are not simply individual pursuits that one can engage in while being in isolation from the relevant social context:

Pursuing located life-plans generally requires individuals to access spaces that are shared with other people. For a person to undertake a religious, recreational, educational, or work activity means being able to participate in the social practices that constitute these options (Stilz, 2013: 336).

Stilz seems to refer here to activities that are social in that they can only be engaged in with concrete others. Yet in other places, she has a broader concept of the social context in mind, for instance while referring to a quote by Joseph Raz: “A person can have a comprehensive goal only if it is based on existing social forms, that is, on forms of behavior which are in fact widely practiced in his society” (Raz in Stilz, 2013: 336). This claim entails the social sphere in a more fundamental, ontological way (Raz, 1988). Someone’s individual options can only be perceived as meaningful by virtue of being embedded in a socio-cultural setting, what Will Kymlicka refers to as a “societal culture” (Kymlicka, 1995). Kymlicka argues that if we value personal autonomy, we need to value culture as a context of choice that presents us with meaningful options. That means that we can only choose our life-plans, our comprehensive goals and pursuits, within the limits and possibilities that a cultural context of choice provides. In this way, even strictly individual pursuits, like collecting rare stamps, are possible only by virtue of this social-cultural background.

Stilz refers both to Joseph Raz and Will Kymlicka to support her position that national minorities, like North American Indian tribes, have legitimate claims to occupancy rights to certain parts of the territory of the countries they reside in, which means “the right to reside permanently in an area, and to make use of it for social, cultural, and economic practices, immune from removal or expropriation” (2013: 342). Moreover, if the access of others disrupts their ability to participate in shared practices, outsiders may even be excluded, depending on how weighty the interests of those outsiders are (2013: 328).

V Applying occupancy rights to gentrification-based displacement

To be clear, gentrification allows for a richer moral analysis than the mere focus on physical displacement. Margaret Kohn, for instance, discusses additional potential harms: exclusion of people who are prevented from moving into a neighborhood because of rising costs; the transformation of the character of a neighborhood and the resulting sense of estrangement (socio-cultural displacement); the homogenization of a fully gentrified neighborhood resulting in an elite enclave; class-based polarization in a partially gentrified situation (2016: ch. 5). Casey Dawkins (2023) addresses additional challenges like; exploitation as a result of low-income renters’ dependence on landlords (cf. Zimmer, 2017); marginalization (like homelessness) produced by the affordable housing crisis that gentrification contributes to, and; the loss of political-power by incumbent residents (cf. Draper, 2024). Moreover, if the goal would be to arrive at a complete moral assessment of gentrification, countervailing considerations in favor of gentrification would have to be taken into account as well, such as improved amenities and maintenance, employment opportunities and mixed urban political fora (Byrne, 2003; Whyte, 1988/2010). The point of this paper is limited in this regard: the moral argument against physical displacement caused by gentrification should be based on the moral value of social attachments, not personal autonomy. The main focus on physical displacement is justified given that this seems the most disruptive, or even devastating consequence of gentrification (Atkinson, 2000).

Margaret Kohn is one of the first theorists to apply the plan-based occupancy rights framework directly to gentrification-based displacement, although, as I’ve just laid out, her analyses is richer than that (2016: 60 ff.).² Kohn actually discusses the two versions of this argument, namely, Anna Stilz’s Kantian approach that rests on the individual’s interest in pursuing her conception of the good and Margaret Moore’s approach to occupancy rights that emphasizes a more communitarian idea of collective-self-determination that “adds a distinctive emphasis on the unchosen dimension of our relationship with place” (Kohn, 2016: 61). Yet, from this point on, applications of the occupancy rights logic by other thinkers lean more and more towards Stilz’ Kantian interpretation. Huber and Wolkenstein (2018) had the most impact with their systematic application of Stilz’ concept of occupancy rights to the issue of gentrifying neighborhoods in contemporary cities. Many theorists since their 2018 paper build on their argument that what is morally wrong with gentrification-related displacement, either physical or socio-cultural, is that the occupancy rights of long-standing residents are violated for the reason that their located life-plans are disrupted (Dawkins, 2023; cf. Draper, 2024; Hofmann, 2020; Lloyd, 2023; Putnam, 2021; Bonotti and Barnhill, 2022).

The main reason for the success of this approach for the moral assessment of gentrification seems that the concept of occupancy rights fits nicely into a familiar liberal framework we already alluded to. Key to modern liberalism is the principle of personal autonomy, that is, the moral importance of individual self-government: the idea that a person has a prime interest in being able to make fundamental life-choices for his or her own life to go well (Mill, 1859/1989). And whereas early manifestations of this fundamental idea stressed the importance of negative rights against the intrusion of others or an overpowering government, later articulations have, in addition to such negative civil rights, emphasized that the right to self-government is meaningless without positive rights that make the exercise of personal freedom possible, basically in terms of political as well as social rights (Marshall, 1950/1992). Recent liberal contributions stress that personal autonomy requires that individuals have a range of valuable options available, which is only possible by being embedded in a socio-cultural context (Kymlicka, 1995; Raz, 1988). So citizens do not only need civil, social and political rights but also “cultural” or “occupancy” rights that are able to protect and sustain a meaningful socio-cultural context of choice.

To be conceptually clear, “autonomy” in this paper refers to personal autonomy as it figures prominently in this liberal tradition, not to group or collective autonomy. Autonomy basically means the right to self-govern. Group autonomy refers to collective rights of a group to self-govern, which concerns rights that can be based on non-liberal principles such as shared ethnicity or nationhood. I’m specifically focused on the liberal conception of personal autonomy and its socio-cultural conditions. The main point of this paper is to show how that conception distorts our understanding of the moral significance of social attachments. This is not an argument against liberal autonomy, but against the presupposition that this is the only moral value and that all other moral values should be seen as inferior and instrumental.

The plan-based notion of occupancy rights suits this liberal framework very well and this must be part of its appeal.³ There are, however, significant moral differences between Indigenous peoples that have been driven of their lands by colonizing powers on the one hand and residents being pushed out of their neighborhoods as a result of gentrification on the other. Not only do neighborhood residents not constitute a “people” with an institutionally complete culture and history, but also, the type of activities that tie people to a place are often quite different. Whereas national minorities express interest in place-based activities like hunting wild buffalo and religious rituals at sacred places (Stilz, 2019: 43, 176), long-standing residents have ties to a place that are related to different activities. Let me give some representative examples of such located life-plans relevant to urban neighborhoods:

Social sphere—A mother that relies on some neighbors to watch her children after school, so she can take a full-time job. If such support networks are unavailable, this choice is more difficult and perhaps impossible (Kohn, 2016: 61).

Religious sphere—Jewish rituals can only be carried out when there is a “minyan,” which is made up of ten adult males. Hence a Jewish community must be concentrated in physical space or otherwise such full participation in Jewish life is difficult (Kohn, 2016: 61).

Economic sphere—Many economic activities can only be carried out in a place with certain geographical, ecological or infrastructural characteristics (Stilz, 2013: 338). If you own a shop that caters to a specific ethnic community, you would not be able to reproduce that activity outside of that locale, say in a random suburb.

Gentrification in the literature entails a double threat to occupancy rights of long-standing citizens, although there are differences between the different theorists. Some only stress the threat that gentrification poses to long-standing residents by being forced out of gentrified neighborhoods—the risk of physical displacement (Kohn, 2016)—while others argue that residents should not only be protected against the threat of expulsion but also against the transformative aspects that typically accompany the process of gentrification (Huber and Wolkenstein, 2018). The result in a way is the same: the loss of the familiar character and social relations of a particular neighborhood.

So in both cases, located life-plans of a neighborhood dweller are undermined. What is adversely violated is, in the words of Huber and Wolkenstein, the “spatiality of life plans” that is supported by the neighborhood as a familiar “background condition” that “enables and structures all kinds of further choices that together determine how someone’s life goes” (Huber and Wolkenstein, 2018: 9, italics mine). They add to that: “Occupancy rights thus do not entitle their holders to have their plans fulfilled. Rather, they are concerned with the spatial background conditions of their pursuit” (2018: 17).

Personal autonomy is threatened in a rather straightforward way by forced removal from a place that you identify with, given that coercion itself jeopardizes your ability to self-govern (Hofmann, 2020: 205). This seems especially true if the displacement in case is deliberate, as in government-led gentrification. But gentrification-induced displacement, according to this literature, also undermines the spatial background conditions for the possibility of realizing people’s comprehensive goals. In this regard, being embedded is morally valuable for the reason that situated life-plans require it. Embeddedness in that sense becomes a “primary good” like income: a necessary resource for the good life (Rawls, 1999).

There are fundamental problems with this moral logic that I discuss in the next sections. The view that a sense of belonging could be of moral value in a non-derivative sense and could as such give rise to occupancy rights that protect the locational basis for this interest, is absent. I will discuss three main concerns with this reductive bend in our thinking about attachments to home and neighborhood: it is empirically and phenomenologically unconvincing (§6); it entails specific practical risks (§7); and it is unnecessary (§8).

Before we begin this discussion, however, I want to make some important qualifications. As I mentioned briefly earlier, urban space is complex, non-homogenous and—especially in gentrified neighborhoods—contested. I want to unpack this a bit further here. It is important to emphasize that bureaucratic neighborhoods do not always automatically entail social units, and local relations do not by definition imply the neighborhood as an integral community (Blokland, 2003). The language of “urban communities” might contribute to an image of spatially and socially fixed collective characteristics that are transmitted from generation to generation and capture the behavior and value orientation within them. This is misleading. Instead of communities of culture, diversity in modern cities is often better understood in terms of a “multitude of crosscutting social and cultural cleavages” (Baumann, 1997: 210; Pile, 1999). Furthermore, “social attachments” are seen less and less in terms of mere locality. The modern city, after all, is a mediator between local loyalties and global identification because the city itself offers encounters with the global sphere via everyday urban experiences—what Dürrschmidt (1997: 57) has called “microglobalization.” One is connected to an international public via one’s belonging to the world city that, in a way, offers virtual corridors to distant places. Cities, as Ulf Hannerz puts it, “open towards the world” for the reason that “there is a flow of people and goods as well as meanings in and out of the city; to and from other cities and more distant areas” (Hannerz, 1992: 197–198; Hannerz, 1996: 127ff.). This means, in the words of Benjamin (1999[1982]: 419), that, “in the course of flânerie, far-off times and places interpenetrate the landscape of the present moment.”

Yet, different social groups as well as different individuals are placed in distinct ways in relation to these flows and interconnections, what Massey refers to as the “power geometry” (Massey, 2008). We have not all become cosmopolitan flâneurs (Friedman, 1997; Van Leeuwen, 2019). And although locality has become hybridized and infused with geographic and cultural transcendence, physical proximity still does provide a specific context for neighborly contacts and a tacit sense of belonging (Blokland, 2003).

VI Plan-based justification is phenomenologically and empirically unconvincing

Theorists who build on the located life-plan logic typically emphasize the importance of social attachments in their critique of gentrification-related displacement. Yet, the autonomy related principles, in the end, do the real moral work while social attachments are relevant only in a derivative sense. In fact, the recourse to equal liberty in this context is so ecumenical, that this is not only present in this literature, but also in arguments against gentrification-induced displacement on the basis of the harms of “domination” and “power inequality” (Hoover, 2023; Jenkins, 2022; Putnam, 2021; Zimmer, 2017), as well as on the basis of a Rawlsian inspired concept of “distributive justice” (Sundstrom, 2024). Even Margaret Kohn, who takes “solidarity” as a moral point of departure, in the end appeals to personal autonomy for a moral assessment of physical displacement (Kohn, 2016: ch. 5). Although Kohn acknowledges the “affective and psychic dimensions of attachment to place” and even speaks of “topophilia” (2016: 66, 99), she develops a moral argument against forced displacement that is firmly based on the liberal-egalitarian logic of personal autonomy, namely, luck-egalitarianism (2016: 95 ff.). Although “egalitarianism” generally entails the moral importance of equality, luck-egalitarians argue that not all inequalities are unfair. Taking citizens seriously as agents presupposes individual responsibility. Therefore, only inequalities that arise as a result of bad luck, for which one is not responsible, are unjust and ought to be compensated for (Dworkin, 2000; critical, Anderson, 1999). Kohn argues that the “choice” to keep on living in an inner-city neighborhood that one cannot really afford, is basically an “expensive choice” for which one typically would be held responsible. Yet, being threatened with eviction as a result of gentrification is still morally wrong, according to Kohn, because of “bad price luck,” a notion she borrows from Gerald Cohen (Cohen, 2011). The fact that the market is responsible for the expensive nature of the taste implies that the person after all is not responsible for it:

Poor people who wish to remain in their gentrifying neighborhoods are classic victims of “bad price luck.” These residents could not reasonably be held accountable for the expensiveness of their taste. (2016: 98)

This strikes me as a reductionist way to argue against displacement; reductionist because it relies, I think dubiously, on the logic of respect for personal autonomy.

This logic makes it hard to distinguish between the claims of residents and non-residents wanting to move in; after all, both groups experience “bad price luck.” Why should the claims of poor residents overrule those of poor non-residents, who after all experience the same obstacles to live in that area, obstacles that they are not responsible for either? To solve this obvious problem for the luck-egalitarian attempt to protect residents from being pushed out of their neighborhoods, Kohn argues that only long-standing residents should receive extra resources in order to fulfill their “preference” to continue living in their increasingly expensive neighborhood, because “original residents acquired an attachment to a working-class neighborhood” (2016: 98). But then the question is: why take recourse to the logic of personal autonomy with the (in this context) unhappy language of “choice,” “taste” and “preference,” if the existing attachments in fact morally distinguish insiders from outsiders? That distinction only makes sense if social attachments themselves are morally relevant instead of derivative or secondary (see § 8).

Developing attachments to your home and neighborhood, cannot be interpreted as a type of “taste” or “choice.” Instead, forming social attachments to culture, ethnicity and neighborhood is typically unchosen and should more appropriately be understood in terms of developing a horizon of significance that shapes and orients certain individual choices (Van Leeuwen, 2006, 2007; see also § 8). But that does not mean that social attachments to place or culture are then only morally relevant as “conditions” for choice, as the located life-plan theorists argue in line with Stilz’ Kantian approach.

The reduction of social attachments to conditions for autonomy transforms a meaning-relationship into a functional relationship. What cannot be affirmed in this perspective is that social attachments are themselves of value and relevance for members of social groups. A sense of social belonging to a place is not just experienced as a “condition” for “choice” of “personal pursuits or plans.” Social attachments are typically experienced as intrinsically meaningful constituents of a human life.

Although people differ in what they are attached to, social attachments to particular places, like the family home or the neighborhood, are fundamental for a sense of belonging. Such significant places are more than just instrumental background conditions because of the fact that, as Margaret Radin puts it, our personality and individuality is intertwined with them (Radin, 1986). Radin argues against the full commodification of houses for the reason that residential housing, either rented or owned, is fundamentally different from other things that are rented or sold on the free market. That is why she argues for the importance of rent control, a form of price control that limits the amount of money a property owner can charge for renting a home or apartment and thereby protects tenants from being priced out of their home. This argument is based on the conceptual distinction between “personal property” and “fungible property.” Personal property is bound up with the way someone understands him- or herself and for that reason is considered to be of intrinsic value, whereas fungible property is merely held instrumentally, for instance for investment and exchange. This distinction should not be seen as a dichotomy but rather as virtual end points on what in reality often is a continuum and so a matter of degree (Radin, 1986: 363).

Certain types of property are part of someone’s self-understanding; they are tacitly experienced as an external expression and confirmation of a particular sense of self. The subject and the object, in that neo-Hegelian sense of personhood, cannot be understood as fully separated, given that humans need an external medium to make sense of who they are and what their place in the world is. This medium however—whether it refers to language, recognition or the built environment—not only expresses the self, but also shapes it in certain ways. This is what Charles Taylor refers to as Hegel’s big insight; he calls it “the principle of necessary embodiment” (Taylor, 1979: 16–18; 1985: 85 ff.). This principle has been hugely influential in continental philosophy. Marx’s alienation thesis is just one example in this regard.

Human thinking and understanding do not take place in an immaterial center of consciousness, but instead are necessarily embodied in certain media and these media constitute our practical self-understanding. A particular home, in that sense, becomes a part of who we are especially if we live there long enough so that it becomes an incarnation of our past and our memories as particular persons in relation to others (perhaps long gone by now).⁴ Even for a tenant, their rented house in this way typically is much more than just a place to store belongings and offer shelter against the elements: it typically becomes a home that can be understood in terms of an extended-mind (Nine, 2018). A home, to be clear, is not simply an organic extension of the person all the time and for everyone involved. Home can also be experienced at times as a stressful place of conflict, even a kind of prison that stifles self-development, especially for women in places that are characterized by traditionally defined gender roles. But even in those instances, the significance of home is often internally ambiguous. Feelings of monotony and lack of freedom are mixed with the sense of home as a warm place of intimacy that makes “her feel more ‘complete’” (Gonzáles, 2005: 208).⁵

And although one cannot argue that a neighborhood is personal property like a house is for some, one can argue that many city-dwellers are attached not only to a particular home but also to the local community. Because that community is also part of one’s personal identity to the degree that persons are constituted by local networks and relationships in general. As Yi-Fu Tuan puts it: “a person in the process of time invests bits of his emotional life in his home, and beyond the home in his neighborhood” (1974: 99).

Citizens under threat of gentrification don’t formulate their claims in the detached language of securing a “background condition” for personal “projects or plans.” To reduce respect for social attachments to respect for personal autonomy doesn’t do justice to the meaning of social attachments from an internal perspective. The result is a certain kind of paternalism, because the recognition of a local community is defended for reasons that don’t do justice to the actual motivation of those involved themselves. Let us consider some empirical evidence for this thesis in addition to the phenomenological arguments.

Michael Young and Peter Willmott conducted a by now classic sociological study of the intimate lives and relationships of the British urban working class and the effects of the post-war governments’ plans to clear slums and rehouse residents in more modern, better equipped housing estates (1957).⁶ The case they studied is Bethnal Green, a tight-knit borough of East London characterized by strong kinship bonds of extended families living geographically close together. The “social capital” in this borough was vibrant and strong. After relocating to the new estate, miles away from their kin, tenants—especially the woman (who stayed at home)—faced hard times. They felt socially isolated and cut off. As one of them put it: “It’s like being in a box to die out here” (1957: 133). Despite the fact that the new houses were much better equipped, with warm water and indoor toilets, they missed these relationships so deeply that “many migrants in fact decided that they had made the wrong decision, and left the estate, most of them to return to the East End” (1957: 129).

This painful longing for their old community is impossible to articulate in terms of a need for “resources.” After all, the new houses with gardens, modern equipment and comfort made a lot of sense, especially for families with children (1957: 124–127). Granted, the old support networks certainly had a functional aspect to them in that family members offered help and guidance in difficult times. For instance, mothers helped their daughters when they had young children, whereas the daughters helped their mothers when they were old and feeble. But that help was not simply “functional.” It was experienced by both parties as an expression of affectionate care that made the mutual support intrinsically valuable (1957: 193; Manzo et al., 2008: 1868).

Another classic case is Marc Fried’s study of the process of relocation from the West End of Boston, in which the post-relocation reactions are interpreted as “expressions of grief.” The stronger the neighborhood ties were pre-relocation, the more severe the post-relocation experience of grief turned out (Fried, 1966: 363–364). Indicative for this grief is the way those involved put this sense of loss into words: “‘I felt as though I had lost everything’, ‘I felt like my heart was taken out of me’ … ‘Something of me went with the West End’.” (1966: 360) These expressions are telling given the neo-Hegelian thesis of the embodied subject discussed earlier. This existential experience of “grieving for a lost home” is indicative of the way in which a network of people and a particular psychical place can become part of the self because they are constitutive of the extended, embodied person (1966: 362; cf. Lewicka, 2011: 216 ff.). In contrast, it is hard to see how a sense of grief can be an existential response to the loss of a “background condition” for some valued activity.

This existential investment in a particular place is not limited to the West End in Boston or the East End in London. It is a wide-spread human potential that varies in intensity and degree (Blokland, 2003: 157 ff.; Shamai, 1991). The geographical literature on place-attachment and place-identity attests to this potential and shows how problematic the activistic, liberal-instrumental interpretation is. As Edward Krupat puts it:

The concept of place identity makes explicit the key role that a person’s relationship to the environment plays not simply in terms of a context for action or in facilitating certain forms of behaviour, but in becoming “part of the person,” of being incorporated into one’s concept of self. The intensity of “grieving for a lost home” becomes clearer when we understand forced relocation as an attack on “self” rather than an attack on “property” (1983: 343, italics line).

Place-identity literature stresses the fact that a particular place can become part of a personal background of understanding that provides a context of significance for those who live there. This substructure of someone’s identity entails environment-related cognitions, “a potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about specific physical settings as well as types of settings.” It entails that the environment becomes part of who we are and how we understand ourselves: “a cognitive backdrop” or “a physical environment ‘data-base’” (Proshansky et al., 1983: 60, 66). If we look at the diverse functions of place-identity, we can see that these are mostly passive in nature, that is, they are located in the sphere of interpretation and meaningful experience (1983: 66 ff.). This is another sign that activistic language of “plans” and “pursuits” is out of sync with what is fundamentally at stake: the structures of personhood itself. Although people are able to resettle in another place without breaking down (Greene et al., 2011; Lewicka, 2014) and conceive of “home” as potentially open to change and translocation (Gibas, 2019), forced displacement can lead to what Mindy Fullilove refers to as “root shock”; “a profound emotional upheaval that destroys the working model of the world that had existed in the individual’s head” (2016: 14). The language of a “model,” however, that exists “in the head” is problematic given the fundamental non-representational thesis of the “embodied self” (Dixon and Durrheim, 2000; Taylor, 1985).

Whereas place-identity emphasizes the cognitive and cultural aspects of a place, place attachment refers to the emotional bond, connection or identification that an individual or group of people develop with a specific place. It refers to the sense of belonging and comfort that individuals feel when they are in a particular location. A crucial distinction in this regard, that gets lost in the literature on plan-based occupancy rights, is the distinction between “place attachment” (affective bonds) and “place dependence” (instrumental bonds with place) (Lewicka, 2011: 220: Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006). Although the latter can go together with the former, this is not necessarily the case: tensions between these people-place relations can occur (Stokols, 1990: 643 ff.). A shop owner can cater to a neighborhood community and earn a living in this way (place dependence), but without sharing their sense of community (place-attachment). Jennifer Lee studied relationships between mostly Jewish and Korean merchants and their black customers in New York and Philadelphia (2002). Instead of a sense of community there had been points of conflict between poor black residents on the one hand and local Korean and Jewish merchants on the other. But a kind of benign indifference let civility prevail (2002: 186). This example shows how dependency on place can be very different from, even at odds with, affective attachments to place.

VII Plan-based justification entails moral risk

The logical consequence of the instrumentalism inherent in the plan-based account is that the socio-cultural context itself is not protected. What is characteristic of an instrument is that it is, in principle, just one of many possible ways to reach a certain goal. If other more effective or efficient means present themselves—that don’t conflict with the final goal (realizing particular life-plans)—then it is allowed to apply them.

Even if one acknowledges that these background conditions are often particularized, as some stress like Stilz (2013: 334), the moral significance is ultimately not implicated in those conditions themselves but in the plans, the projects, and the pursuits. In short, the fact that certain instruments seem, for the time being, unique to the plans we pursue, does not take away the fact that the moral meaning of these conditions is derived from the moral significance of the plans and so personal autonomy.

That opens up the theoretical possibility of a quick and effective assimilation to another location or a reproduction of the local space in another place, however difficult that might be in practice. Such procedures, if they would be possible, do not meet the moral position of the occupancy theorists. The question is: Why not? What is wrong with this type of assimilation to a similar neighborhood or reproduction of the main elements of the old one, if the plans and pursuits themselves are the ultimate moral criterion?

What is of course wrong with it is that assimilation to a new place would deny the importance of the attachments to a particular place and social group. And it is those attachments that ultimately matter to people, not just the “plans” and “pursuits” that a place and particular social group made possible. Take the earlier example of the mother relying on some neighbors to take care of her children after school so that she is able to pursue a job. If it is really this “pursuit” of a job that matters morally, displacing this family would not be morally problematic provided that local government would guarantee that good, economically accessible childcare facilities are available in the new neighborhood. One could even argue, from a purely functionalist perspective, that the institutionalized childcare would be better for the children, given socialization and opportunities to play. And one could extent the hypothetical in many ways to put increasing pressure on the plan-based logic. Suppose the neighbors are increasingly annoyed with the recurring requests to babysit because they have their own “comprehensive pursuits” to realize. And suppose their growing irritation has repercussions on the way they treat the children. So from the functionalist point of view in which one’s “plans” and “pursuits” take center stage, the move to a new neighborhood with childcare facilities might even be preferable, even if one would need to adapt or assimilate to this new situation. In these circumstances, it is hard to see how gentrification-based displacement would be morally wrong. Unless one realizes, that is, that informal childcare from support networks is related to people’s identity and has much more than only instrumental meaning, as shown above in the discussed case of East London.

I’ve also mentioned the idea of a reproduction of the original location in another place. Suppose a whole neighborhood is subject to urban renewal and the plan is to forcibly regroup the people to another location that is built in more of less the same way. For the sake of testing the argument, let us assume that the new neighborhood is adapted in such a way both socially and physically, that it would be certain that no located life-plans would be undermined. If readers find this hard to believe, just think of this as a kind of thought experiment. What if a whole neighborhood could be instantly relocated, via some new technology, to a different but socially and physically similar place such that the life-plans of the inhabitants could immediately resume? Anna Stilz suggests that in this scenario, there is at least potentially moral wrongdoing (2013: 340–341). Not one, however, that can be expressed in terms of a violation of the geographical conditions of located life-plans. Yet those who are subjected to such a forced relocation “still retain a general claim not to be forced or coerced without sufficient justification.” She adds that “the case against territorial relocation is much weaker here, since our pro tanto claim against compulsion can be overridden in the face of a compelling social rationale” (2013: 341). From the point of view of respect for someone’s social attachments, however, such forced removal and reproduction is not just pro tanto wrong because it is forced upon people (a violation of autonomy) but, more importantly, because people’s identifications with a shared and valued place are violated (a violation of social attachments), that is, the neighborhood and its socio-cultural intricacies that are particularized. Reproduction of the functional aspects, those that allow all specific life-plans, will not do. As Fullilove puts it: “The elegance of the neighborhood—each person in his social and geographical slot—is destroyed, and even if the neighborhood is rebuilt exactly as it was, it won’t work. The restored geography is not enough to repair the many injuries to the mazeway” (2016: 14).

VIII Plan-based justification is unnecessary; an alternative approach to urban justice

The recourse to “conditions” for “plan-based pursuits” is unnecessary if we want to recognize the moral significance of people’s social attachments to their home and neighborhood. That is only necessary if we hang on the idea that our moral universe is defined by one singular, fundamental principle: equal personal autonomy. But there is no good reason to assume that all of our moral commitments might be reduced to one basic reason or moral principle (Taylor, 1989, 2001). So in this section, I want to briefly outline an alternative approach to justice that is able to accommodate respect for social attachments as a separate moral category, distinct from respect for personal autonomy.

I propose a concept of urban justice in terms of access to human space, namely, on the basis of a fundamentally revised and expanded version of Axel Honneth’s recognition-theoretical approach.⁷ “Human space” refers to urban space in its capacity to actively shape personal identity by embodying different patterns of recognition, namely, care, respect, and esteem, that positively affirm the corresponding aspects of the personality, namely, needs (care), personal autonomy and social attachments (respect) and abilities/traits/achievements (esteem). A city is just when city-dwellers live in an urban environment that reinforces a basic sense of self-worth—a fundamental condition for the good life—by embodying these patterns of recognition. I will limit the discussion here to two categories of recognition that are key for a moral assessment of gentrification-based displacement: respect for social attachments and respect for personal autonomy. I do have to draw a contrast with esteem, however, just to clarify the meaning of respect.

Respect is traditionally understood as a formal type of recognition and as focused on the importance of individual self-determination (see also § 5). What is being recognized here is not some particular ability or achievement, as in esteem, but the importance of being able to pursue those projects and values that a person deems fundamental for leading the good life. This respect for personal autonomy is part and parcel of the liberal tradition and ought to be incorporated into any conception of justice. It entails not only negative civil rights, but, as we have seen, also positive social and political rights. The problem with much liberal theorizing is the presupposition that equal liberty is the only moral value worth considering. Respect, however, should also accommodate a formal recognition of social attachments. I define “social attachments” as identifications of oneself and particular others as part of a social group on the basis of a shared and valued good, such as a shared neighborhood, without this belonging being the direct result of individual choices or certain achievements. Social attachments are a morally relevant feature of the human condition given their importance for a sense self-respect as social belonging, so fundamental for human well-being. Being displaced as a result of gentrification violates the concept of human space, because it entails a denial of social attachments and thus contributes to a loss of such self-respect.

If political bodies respect social attachments of a group through some policy or regulation, what is recognized is the attachment itself, the social bond or shared identifications. This type of recognition is focused on the value of a shared good for the group involved, not on the value of this shared good “in itself” or “for society” at large. Such policies or regulations that contribute to human space are not, in other words, based on the intrinsic value of a local culture (shops, religious institutions, and so on) quite independently from the significance for the group for whom it matters. In this sense, respect for difference, or difference respect, is formal and should not be confused with esteem, for instance, for certain cultural traditions that are specific for a certain social group (Van Leeuwen, 2007). Esteem is a substantial appraisal on the basis of, often culturally specific, standards of evaluation. Esteem is morally relevant in its own right, but in a different way, namely, in terms of the proper conditions for meaningful appraisal in order to avoid ethnocentrism, like hermeneutical openness (Taylor, 1994). Difference respect, however, does not involve such a substantial evaluation, just as respecting someone’s choice does not entail agreeing with it.

A key conceptual distinction between these two axes of respect is that social attachments are not simply the object of choice, but rather influence many of our choices. One cannot simply “choose” to grow up in a particular culture or neighborhood, or to be of a specific nationality or ethnic descent. What is characteristic of a social attachment is precisely that, to a certain degree, it always escapes individual understanding and personal control. This does not imply that a social attachment to a cultural or religious group is unavoidable, a fate, for one is always capable of reevaluating a social attachment, no matter how important this belonging has been for one’s own identity (Taylor, 1985: 44 ff). Yet, a social group cannot be understood as the product of some social contract, nor can belonging to it be understood as an individual decision (Young, 1990: 46). As Avishai Margalit puts it: “Belonging is generally determined by criteria that are not the result of choice. People do not decide to belong to an encompassing group. They belong because of what they are” (Margalit, 1996: 140).

Respect for social attachments, or difference respect, acknowledges the intrinsic and not just the instrumental value of a shared good for the particular social group involved, while respect for autonomy, or autonomy-respect, recognizes the importance of individual self-determination. Whereas difference respect is constitutive for self-respect as a sense of belonging, autonomy-respect is constitutive for self-respect as a sense of equal moral responsibility and accountability. Together with care for needs and social esteem for valued traits and abilities, difference respect and autonomy-respect define a kind of space in which one is able to develop an identity and a way of life that is truly human. Urban justice implies, in short, that people have access to this human space. Human space entails a normative conception of urban space as a force that shapes city dweller’s practical self-understanding by embodying patterns of recognition that positively affirm the different aspects of the personality. Conversely, inhuman space is space that radiates a sense of neglect, rejection or even disgust. Whether we talk of structural disinvestment or defensive architecture: such spaces are not only constitutive for a lack of objective opportunities, important as that may be, but they can also undermine a sense of self-respect and as such undermine the intersubjectively generated resources for individual self-realization (Honneth, 1995; Van Leeuwen 2022).

The point of this morally pluralistic conception of urban justice is that both types of respect are morally important and need to be acknowledged without reducing one to the other and without denying that there can be tensions or even difficult conflicts between these moral values in practical contexts like a gentrifying neighborhood: specifically, tensions between the freedom of citizens outside of a particular neighborhood to buy or rent a house there on the one hand, and the social attachments that might be in jeopardy as a result of the accumulation of such desires to move in on the other. If only the importance of individual freedom is stressed, the city runs the risk of being ruled by a market logic with dire consequences for the housing stability and local communities within it. That would be a violation of human space. But if only the right “to stay put” is emphasized, the group of eligible claimants to occupancy is restricted to those who are already living in a particular neighborhood or more broadly, a particular city. That would amount to a violation of human space as well, namely, in terms of an ossification of the city in the name of sanctioning the status quo (Hofmann, 2020: 209 ff.). In order to achieve human space, the freedom of outsiders to move in need to be balanced with the social attachments of those already living there; as such, a credible normative argument against giving market dynamics unrestricted room could be formulated, for instance by arguing in favor of certain types of rent-control and zoning laws that protect social attachments without denying the importance of respect for autonomy.⁸

One example of such a compromise is “tenancy decontrol,” which allows landlords to raise rents to market rates before the start of each new tenancy (Lloyd, 2023: 15). Such a measure at least protects the individual tenant from steep rises in rent during his or her tenancy. In addition to constraints on rent increases, firm restrictions should be placed on a landlord’s ability to decline to renew a lease through so-called “just-cause eviction” regulations (Hartman, 1984/2010: 537 ff.). The result will be a gradual change of the socio-economic composition of the neighborhood over time, but without forcing people to uproot themselves as a consequence of gentrification. This entails both respect for individual autonomy, the freedom to move into a popular neighborhood, and respect for social attachments of the original residents, who are protected against the threat of expulsion due to acute rent increases or the refusal to lease-renewal.

Another strategy would be zoning laws that lead to mixed income housing so that respect for autonomy to move to a certain neighborhood for affluent citizens is not undermined by the attempt to protect a neighborhood indefinitely against the influx of “others,” as if a neighborhood is a piece of sacred private property. One example in this regard is mandatory inclusionary zoning, where new developments or loft-conversions are allowed provided that they include a certain percentage of affordable units. This diversity of types of building is able to accommodate a greater variety of people from different socio-economic backgrounds, but in such a way that the character of the neighborhood will not be transformed abruptly. And when such developments or renovations are concerned, finding a just balance also entails that the claims to return of those long-standing residents and businessowners that identify with a local residential area are taken seriously (Fainstein, 2009).

Balancing occupancy claims of current residents against desires of newcomers to settle there is far from easy and this is not the place to develop a set of helpful criteria.⁹ Making the process of balancing these moral claims subject to certain democratic procedures, where stakeholders are involved from the moment of planning, could be considered to finding that balance, however difficult it might be in practical terms. One way to do that is through a process of participatory budgeting in which citizens are involved in the process of deciding how public money is spent (Huber and Wolkenstein, 2018: 14). The challenge here is, however, to somehow include the interests of those newcomers who have yet to become part of the neighborhood or the city. Especially the “rights to the city” of newcomers who lack particularized occupancy rights of their own, like refugees, should be taken seriously in this regard (Hofmann, 2020: 210). By accommodating autonomy-respect in this way, we avoid closed and reactionary localisms with strongly marked boundaries that defend a static sense of intact community against “intruders.” Instead, we make room for what some have referred to as an adequately “progressive sense of place,” which entails a consciousness of the neighborhood as a dynamic and distinct mixture of local and wider social relations, with the city at large and even the wider world (Massey, 2018). Human space is not simply about conserving partialized urban space.

To sum up, I argue in favor of a kind of moral plurality in which the moral importance of respect for social attachments is acknowledged as well as respect for personal autonomy, without reducing one type of respect to the other by simply making social attachments to place a “condition” for autonomy. That type of moral complexity might make things more messy and complicated than the moral monism criticized here, but at least it does justice to the fact that this moral complexity is the stuff that our lives is made of. If the best defense of a political theory appeals to the way in which people, on reflection, understand the value of their own lives, the structure of this type of argument is much more appealing.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Bart van Leeuwen

Notes

Author biography

Bart van Leeuwen, For almost 15 years, Bart van Leeuwen's research has focused on the domain of urban political theory. He has published in journals across the disciplines of political theory, ethics, social theory, geography and urban studies on subjects like urban justice, segregation, gentrification, urban citizenship, and homelessness. In a recent publication entitled ‘What is the Point of Urban Justice?,’ he has developed a normative framework from which these different issues can be addressed coherently (2022). This provides the basis for a book project he is currently working on. For Bart van Leeuwen's key publications, see:

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What is wrong with gentrification-related displacement?

Abstract

Keywords

I Introduction

II The concept of gentrification

III How to critically frame gentrification?

IV Plan-based occupancy rights and indigenous land rights

V Applying occupancy rights to gentrification-based displacement

VI Plan-based justification is phenomenologically and empirically unconvincing

VII Plan-based justification entails moral risk

VIII Plan-based justification is unnecessary; an alternative approach to urban justice

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biography

References