Gentrification is affecting cities all across Canada, and while it might seem like there’s nothing we can do to stop it, a new book penned by a gentrification researcher believes it’s the exact opposite.
In Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies, Leslie Kern analyzes and dissects the many false narratives about the process of gentrification, while also challenging the very definition of what it means to gentrify.
Kern originally thought of calling the book, The Killjoys Guide to Gentrification, with the subject centring around “why the things so many of us enjoy and value about cities often lead to gentrification,” among other harmful and destructive impacts.
“That was the original Genesis of the idea for the book,” Kern, who also wrote the book Feminist City, said in an interview with rabble.ca. “And then it evolved into, I think, a more sophisticated way of trying to address different myths and misconceptions about the process [of gentrification].”
Kern’s book tests the false narratives of gentrification being natural, but perhaps more expertly, she opens up the concept of gentrification past the idea of taste and class, to different metaphors of gentrification like yoga studios, tattoo parlours, and the practice of veganism.
By connecting the monetization of activities and lifestyles previously associated with marginalized communities to cultural appropriation, Kern expands the way we think about gentrification.
“I think gentrification has, over the last couple of decades, gone from academic jargon to a term that people use to talk about cities but also about other processes in the social and cultural world,” she explained.
Gentrified cultural practices
In her book, Kern explains how cultural practices that were once kind of taboo, like tattooing, or associated with working class communities, like certain kinds of food, are gentrified through the process of being brought into the mainstream on the premise of being an “artisanal, fancy” product. One example of gentrified food is the growing popularity of cereal cafes—restaurants that sell bowls of Cheerios and Rice Krispies at marked-up prices.
“As I was writing that chapter and exploring these themes, it became obvious, but in many ways,” she said. “Even though these were somewhat metaphorical uses of the term gentrification, they also connected back to the very real material process of gentrification on the ground in cities.”
She pointed to the impact that the upscaling of tattoo parlours might have on the social and cultural fabric of a neighbourhood. On a more widespread level, Kern noted that the rising cost of certain groceries can also lead to the exclusion of working class communities or different cultural groups.
How to push back
What sets Kern’s book about gentrification apart is that it not only captures the process in its different forms, but it also provides concrete steps on how to recognize, raise awareness, and push back against gentrification.
Instead of dismissing gentrification as something that is just happening to us, Kern leaves readers with the tools to take direct action and make meaningful change, rather than resigning to the “inevitable.”
“I totally empathize with the feeling that there’s nothing that one could do, because gentrification does seem like such a steamroller, and so difficult to stop once it’s started,” she said. “But as I tried to show in the book, there are a range of successful strategies that communities all over the world have been using.”
The book covers some of those direct action movements, including those who are demonstrating by “squatting”—the act of occupying an unoccupied area owned by others as a way to shelter unhoused people—as a successful effort to force cities to address homelessness, housing affordability, and the growing number of vacant properties in their communities.
And for those who aren’t comfortable with taking part in direct action, Kern’s book lays out a series of other ways to effectively organize, including through community land trusts, legislation for rent stabilization and eviction moratoriums, and reaching out to local representatives.
“It can make a difference, and it might not completely erase gentrification or stop it in its tracks, but you can make it a lot more difficult for it to proceed through some of these methods,” she said.
Early on in her book, Kern writes of the power of language in the process of gentrification.
“By portraying the neighbourhood as damaged, abandoned and dirty, the changes brought by gentrification come to seem necessary, good and welcome,” the book reads. “Describing the neighbourhood as a place in need of saving makes gentrification a hero.”
Noting that narratives often locate the problem within the neighbourhood itself, “as though it’s some kind of a failure of that community,” Kern pointed out that the root of gentrification is actually traced back to “structural and systemic problems like poverty and the lack of affordable housing,” as well as through the clawback of public and social housing, and the racist practice of redlining.
“All of these things have created a situation where some neighbourhoods struggle to have the basic needs of the community met,” she said.
Kern’s book demonstrates that combatting gentrification requires a multi-faceted response. Tackling things one issue at a time, like getting more green spaces or better infrastructure for cities, can inadvertently lead to gentrification.
And while the book connects the intersections of gentrification so well, it also captures the ways in which the process carries on the legacy of colonization and white supremacy. Taking cues from Indigenous activists and writers, as well as anti-racist scholars who have long argued that gentrification is about more than just class change, Kern concludes that gentrification is “all about private property ownership and expanding property ownership among middle- and upper-classes, as well as wealthy investors and corporations,” a “foundational element of colonization.”
“It’s possible to see gentrification as a consolidation strategy for preventing the return of Indigenous lands to First Nations and other Indigenous groups,” Kern said, adding that, as she wrote in her book, “Indigenous activists will say that colonization is not a metaphor for gentrification, that in many ways, they are one in the same process.”
Editor’s Note September 28: This article has been corrected to reflect that the publisher of Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies is Between the Lines. rabble regrets the error.
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