How may urban revitalization, and so-called area-based strategies lead to gentrification? The urban districts of Tøyen and Grønland in the city of Oslo, are examples of areas where such revitalization strategies have been initiated. But what is the relationship between such urban policies and gentrification in general?
Rebecca Cavicchia is a research fellow at the Nordic research institute Nordregio. She is an architect and holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her research interests are urban sustainability, housing inequalities, housing affordability, gentrification, social justice and urban policy. In this episode the focus is on her Ph.D. dissertation about gentrification-like processes in Oslo.
Kjersti Grut is a human geographer with masters in urban development from the University of Oslo and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. She has worked more than twenty years for Oslo municipality, the last years with urban revitalization and area-based programs, in Grønland and Tøyen. She has first hand experience with the policies discussed in this episode.
Gentrification dynamics in a home-ownership context
– Specifically, I explored the possible socio-spatial implications of urban densification strategies in Oslo.
– I focused in particular on two critical aspects, the accessibility of the housing market and gentrification dynamics in relation to densification, Cavicchia explains.
The research on these kinds of issues is not that developed in the context of Oslo. There is an interesting contradiction between a city that is known to be green and a welfare city, and the issues with inclusion in the housing market.
– The first important aspect was this spatial overlapping between where densification was implemented in the city, and the areas where the level of housing accessibility decreased the most, says Cavicchia.
– These areas are promoted as sustainable, but the question was always, sustainable for whom?
The second important finding from Cavicchia’s research was the spillover effect that the densification areas create, especially in the newly developed densification areas in the inner eastern part of the city. All the surrounding areas experienced a very significant increase in housing prices.
– Talking about gentrification in a context with a very high home-ownership level is kind of difficult.
The solution became looking at housing transactions in the given areas.
– I could access this housing transaction database, and I could see that in these areas there were so many, in some cases the same housing unit was sold two, three times in this time period (2004-2018), and every time at an increased housing price, Cavicchia explains.
Every time a housing unit changed owner, the buyer was likely to have a higher socio-economic status, than the previous owner. As a result of both national and local restraints, and maybe a low willingness for a third housing sector, the local policy to provide affordable housing was quite limited. The areas Cavicchia explored in her thesis was the inner eastern suburbs of Kværnerbyen, Ensjø and Løren, where there have been huge transformations, and extensive apartment building in recent years.
New-build gentrification and indirect displacement
Gentrification is a contested concept and there are several definitions of the phenomenon, given by different scholars. The original definition of gentrification was given by Ruth Glass in 1964. Glass described it as the process of displacement of incumbent residents, usually belonging to the working class, changing the social and physical characteristics of a neighbourhood. However, it may also be linked to new building constructions, as pointed out by Neil Smith. This led to the development of the theory of new-build gentrification in the early two-thousands, which focuses on the building of new constructions with different features than the current housing stock.
– Indirect displacement can happen for example when I’m not at risk of being displaced from my home, but everything surrounding me is changing, like my neighbours are changing, the kind of shops that surround me are changing, so the place where I live is not the place where I moved in the first place, so I kind of lose the sense of place, Cavicchia explains.
Another form of indirect displacement is what is referred to as exclusionary displacement, or exclusionary pressure as Cavicchia renamed it for her thesis.
– When new constructions happen and things change in the surroundings of these areas and especially that prices go up, areas that were previously affordable for lower middle class, are not affordable anymore for them.
– People are not displaced from the actual place, they are not allowed to move in, Cavicchia explains.
Area-based initiatives in Oslo
– Urban area strategies are planning tools to counteract gentrification and to create a more equal development of the city, says Grut.
The Norwegian state and Oslo municipality have public investment and innovation programs aimed at making better places, and public services to improve the living conditions of residents in particular areas.
– Urban area strategies are also about social mobility among the people living in a particular area, Grut elaborates.
The area-based strategies in Oslo operates on different geographical levels. The area policy is about monitoring liveability indexes on the city level, to see where intervention is needed, and how to prevent new areas from becoming vulnerable. On the area level there are investment programs in Groruddalen, Oslo South and inner Oslo, to improve public services and solve liveability challenges in the areas.
– What we would look upon are especially services connected to upbringing, education and unemployment, and for these strategies to be successful it is necessary to work with knowledge-based approaches, user involvement, cooperation and cocreation within the public sector, and also together with the civil, private and academic sector, says Grut.
Place based and bottom-up approaches, also known as "områdeløft", are often used on the neighbourhood level through citizen involvement, where citizens are participating in the profiling of the places and in the development of interventions and solutions.
– For instance, participating in park development, but it can also be making certain concepts in youth clubs or activity houses, such as K1 in Tøyen.
– It can also be soft safety measures, such as neighbourhood hosts and neighbourhood groups, and contacts coming together trying to solve local safety challenges, Grut explains.
The effects of area-based initiatives on gentrification
– It is not very well researched yet, we don’t actually know very much about the effects, says Grut.
Grut stresses that the aim of these strategies is to create social mobility for people living in a certain neighbourhood, and that you can see an increase in employment, and that fewer youths are dropping out in the areas where these interventions have been made.
– The big answer to if we are succeeding is not yet answered and more research is needed, Grut continues.
It can be difficult to distinguish to what extent the area-based developments affect possible gentrification dynamics, or if it is a trend that concerns attractive inner city areas, like Grønland and Tøyen.
– We have examples from other countries where for example area-based development might also lead to the transformation of the area, with the argument of providing better social mix, social housing is steered down, says Cavicchia.
– People are forced to move out and that is a really evident case of gentrification with forced displacement, so it also depends a little bit on the characteristics of the intervention, Cavicchia continues.
In a context like Oslo where home-ownership is the main tenure form and housing is also seen as an investment object, single private apartments may play an important role, with units being refurbished and sold at a higher price. This is an issue that needs to be studied at different scales of investment.
– Housing policy has an important role in counteracting displacement, for example by securing affordable rent and making sure that renters are able to stay, even though their home-area increase in value.
Listen to Rebecca Cavicchia and Kjersti Grut in conversation with Professor Per Gunnar Røe on Gentrification and Area Based Initiatives.