Evidence of Gentrification-induced Displacement ... - SAGE Journals

48(8) 1563–1580, June 2011

Evidence of Gentrification-induced Displacement among Social Services in London and Los Angeles Geoffrey DeVerteuil [Paper first received, November 2009; in final form, May 2010]

Abstract This paper addresses two key gaps within the gentrification/displacement literature: whether gentrification is displacing social services and whether displacement patterns differ comparatively. To this end, evidence is examined of gentrification-induced displacement of 81 purposively sampled social service facilities across gentrifying boroughs in London (Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster) and areas in Los Angeles (Downtown, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice) during the 1998–2008 period. Results suggested that substantial entrapment co-exists alongside displacement and, in fact, was more commonplace. To many urban geographers, gentrification—a process that Hackworth (2002, p. 815) defined as “the production of space for progressively more affluent users”- has moved beyond a quaint, localised phenomenon to a systematic private–public urban strategy at the forefront of a globalised neo-liberal urbanism (Smith, 2002). It encompasses regeneration of city centres and the demolition or privatisation of public housing in an effort to remake the city along higher-class lines (Smith, 2002; Newman and Wyly, 2006). Although there has been a recent resurgence in the attention paid to the exclusionary displacement of the less well-off (for example, Slater, 2006; Lees et al., 2008), this literature is centred on the

fate of individuals: of tenants displaced from demolished public housing or from dwindling low-cost housing, or of homeless individuals banished from prime urban spaces (for example, Crump, 2002; Slater, 2004; Newman and Wyly, 2006; Johnsen and Fitzpatrick, 2007). In this paper, I focus on two key gaps within the gentrification/displacement literature. First and foremost, I address the lack of research on whether gentrification is displacing more than just vulnerable people, but also the social services upon which they may depend. Social services (or human services in the UK) are part of the non-profit voluntary third sector, lying in tension among influences from the state, private market and the

Geoffrey DeVerteuil is in the School of Geography, University of Southampton, 2060 Shackleton Building, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. 0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online © 2010 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098010379277

1564 GEOFFREY DEVERTEUIL

informal sector of family and community (Brandsen et al., 2005; Fyfe, 2005). Social services are all in one way or another caring organizations, providing services or goods with a ‘dual’ public (collective) and private (individual) nature. Care for others on a voluntary basis, directed at a more or less defined and exclusive ‘other’, is regarded as their common denominator (Brandsen et al., 2005, p. 750).

Prime central-city locations are attractive to social service facilities because of their high accessibility (for direct services, ‘caring for’) and visibility (for advocacy services, ‘caring about’), but also intuitively render them vulnerable to being displaced as gentrification may induce rents too high for voluntarysector organisations, generate greater community opposition to existing (or expanding) services, as well as shrink the service-dependent population. Secondly, there is a pressing need for comparative studies of displacement across different urban and national contexts, to see evidence of convergence or divergence of experiences. Just as gentrification is not the same everywhere, neither may be gentrificationinduced social service displacement. A comparative study of social service displacement in gentrifying areas of Los Angeles and London between 1998 and 2008 is proposed, one that builds upon the modest amount of empirical research on displacement (for example, Marcuse, 1985; Newman and Wyly, 2006; Slater, 2006) and the more extensive work on transnational gentrification (for example, Lees, 1994; Carpenter and Lees, 1995; Smith, 1996; Slater, 2004; Harris, 2008; van Criekingen, 2009). Seeking evidence of gentrification-induced social service displacement fills more than just an empirical gap; it also touches on wider issues related to survival and the configuration of social services within neo-liberalising and post-welfare cities. As Trudeau (2008) emphasised, it is important for urban geographers to study the spatial configuration of

social services, as they influence opportunities and life-chances of the most vulnerable citizens. Displacement potentially reduces accessibility for these citizens, many of whom have limited mobility and would find it difficult to access a more dispersed service configuration (Walks and August, 2008). This paper is organised as follows. I begin by reviewing the modest literature on gentrification and displacement. This is followed by contextualising the two case studies of London and Los Angeles. Methodologies are outlined for seeking (comparative) evidence of displacement among social services within gentrifying areas of these two cities. I proceed with the results and compare patterns of displacement between London and Los Angeles. Finally, there is a discussion of the wider implications of the results, emphasising that gentrification is more likely spatially to entrap social services than it is to displace them.

Gentrification and Displacement: Gaps in the Literature A wide array of research has shown gentrification to be harmful, including increased cost of living, depletion of neighbourhood placeidentity, homelessness, community conflict and, critically, the purported direct and indirect displacement of low-income groups and their attendant landscapes (Atkinson, 2000; Shaw, 2005; Davidson, 2008). It is the latter point on which I build my focus, aligning with Slater’s (2006) admonition that geographers have spent too much energy on defining gentrification, pinpointing its causes and describing the constitution and practices of gentrifiers themselves, rather than examining its potentially deleterious consequences on the worst-off (see also Martin, 2005). Gentrification-induced displacement is a clear expression of this class inequality. As a starting-point, I define displacement generally as involuntary movement, as Hartman did in 1984

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Changes of residence which are hoisted on people, which they did not seek out on purpose, for which they may lack the social and economic coping resources ... are detrimental to the individuals and families involved, and produce social costs as well (Hartman, 1984, p. 302).

After a long absence, geographical studies of displacement have recently reappeared on the research agenda (Newman and Wyly, 2006; Slater, 2006). This is despite the persistent methodological challenges inherent in the exercise, including the difficulties in documenting displacement on a statistically significant scale (Shaw, 2008), as well as “the interpretation of outward moves [that] needs to distinguish between prevailing rates of population turnover and involuntary migration” (Atkinson, 2004, p.112). There is further agreement that methods need to be more intensive, fine-grained and qualitative in order to detect gentrification effects (Davidson and Lees, 2005). With renewed interest has come greater debate over the degree to which gentrification is causing displacement, and how much displacement. Briefly, Freeman and Braconi (2004) did not see gentrification as a major cause of displacement, yet from a more critical perspective, Newman and Wyly (2006) and Slater (2006) were careful to note that, however small the numbers, displacement remains a significant downside to gentrification. Moreover, Slater (2006) strongly contended that not nearly enough attention has been paid to the experiences of non-gentrifiers. Watt (2008) concurred when he wondered whether geographical research on gentrification in London has dealt enough with the displaced and working-class views, calling for more ‘bottom–up’ approaches that ask awkward questions of the process. The experiences and voices of social services are but one (neglected) component. Dear and Wolch (1987) originally wrote about the crystallisation of service-dependent ghettos

in central-city districts as convenient ‘coping mechanisms’ for deinstitutionalised patients, yet also anticipated their obvious vulnerability to gentrification-induced displacement and outright dismantlement within an increasingly revalorised, post-industrial city (see Mair, 1986). The assumption henceforth has been that these conspicuous social service clusters were gradually dismantled within the gentrifying city (Reese et al., 2010); consequently, there has been little concerted research on displacement across a broader social service landscape for not only homeless individuals but also the poor, recent immigrants, hungry, elderly, welfaredependent and unemployed. This explains my focus on social services that directly serve a wide range of vulnerable populations (i.e. beyond the homeless), as well as advocate on their behalf. Finally, comparative research on displacement is virtually non-existent, despite some progress on transnational research on gentrification, notably Lees’ (1994) concept of the ‘Atlantic gap’. In my case, the contexts are London and Los Angeles, which have differing patterns of gentrification yet arguably are at the cutting edge of gentrification and possibly displacement, with the upcoming 2012 London Olympics and the current assault on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles (Lees et al., 2008).

Context: Gentrification in London and Los Angeles London (Greater) and Los Angeles (County) were chosen because they provide insightful (yet unlike) case studies. Gentrification diverges considerably: London’s is well established since the 1970s, featuring a strongly centripetal pattern around the high-amenity core area. In such a strong-centre city, the vigorous demand to live near the centre has spurred the upgrading of proximate neighbourhoods for those priced out of the closest markets, an overspill effect that has sedimented across a


wide swathe of inner neighbourhoods. Being a more polycentric city-region, Los Angeles is characterised by a ‘weak-centre’ pattern of gentrification, in which the process of centripetal gentrification is muted, since there is far less need for higher classes to live near the centre, or there is no dominant centre at all (Reese et al., 2010). Nevertheless, gentrification has recently emerged in pockets throughout Los Angeles, even though no one centre exerts anything more than a weak gravitational pull on the entire urban region. Rather than overspill or incumbent upgrading, LA-style gentrification has been driven more by new-build citadels and proximity to natural amenities. Studying Los Angeles should therefore provide an interesting counterpoint to gentrification and displacement within strongly centred urban regions. My comparative study conceptualised displacement, like gentrification, as a process rather than an end-point or optimal point, with pauses, reversals and acceleration. The study period—between 1998 and 2008— roughly overlapped with the rebound in gentrification after the early 1990s recession and its intensification with the housing bubble of the mid 2000s. Moreover, 2007 can be seen as the high-water mark of the current round/ phase of upgrading, the peak of third- and fourth-waves of gentrification. Of course, gentrification in London and Los Angeles operate on different time scales, in that London is farther along in Carpenter and Lees’ (1995, p. 288) stage model of suburbanisation and inner-city institutional disinvestment, devalorisation and abandonment as precursors to reinvestment and institutional financial input. I can therefore expect potentially different patterns (and intensities) of displacement across the two cities, given that London social services have had longer to adapt to displacement pressures, while many in Los Angeles are experiencing gentrification effects for the first time, as well as operating in a more hostile, possibly revanchist, American model.

Research Design While easier to track social services than displaced residents—especially given the existence of comprehensive service databases— there still remain important challenges, especially the difficulties in: disentangling gentrification effects from other locational pressures upon social services; locating services that have been displaced well beyond the study area; and, locating those services that have disbanded completely because of gentrification. These challenges required mixed methods that include longitudinal numerical analysis with large enough samples, along with qualitative interview material to pinpoint actual displacement and reasons behind it (Atkinson, 2003). Selecting the Case Studies

I began by identifying a total of eight neighbourhoods where gentrification was present in 2008 and where social services concentrated (see Figures 1 and 2). Gentrification in London has been studied since Glass’ original coining of the term in 1964 in Islington and, subsequently, few cities in the world have been so extensively researched. There is agreement that all inner London boroughs have experienced upgrading since the 1960s (Hamnett, 2003; Butler et al., 2008). For the purposes of this study, four boroughs were chosen. Westminster’s gentrification is the most sedimented and intertwined with persistent and pre-existing enclaves of wealth (Hamnett, 2003; Butler et al., 2008). The other three boroughs were all once very working-class and even poverty-class. Islington is the most polarised, with Barnsbury as the epitome of a supergentrified neighbourhood, yet the borough is also the fourth most deprived borough out of 32 (Butler and Robson, 2003a; Hamnett, 2003; Butler and Lees, 2006; Hamnett and Whitelegg, 2007). Lambeth and Southwark have seen (new-build) gentrification mostly along the River Thames,


with more spotty upgrading beyond (Short, 1989; Butler and Robson, 2001; Butler and Robson, 2003b; Davidson and Lees, 2005; Harris, 2008). The task of identifying gentrified areas was more challenging in Los Angeles, since relatively little has been written about its pattern.1 As a first step, I relied upon median sale price during the study period (1998–2008, per square foot) to establish gentrification in four areas of Los Angeles County that have received some attention due to their upgrading since 1998 (Keil, 1998; Takahashi, 1998; Wolch, 2008; Marr et al., 2009; Reese et al., 2010): Downtown (zip codes 90012, 90013, 90014, 90015, 90017, 90021), Hollywood (90028, 90038, 90068), Santa Monica (90401, 90402, 90403, 90404, 90405) and Venice (90291).2 Downtown, Hollywood and Venice have all experienced significantly greater increases in median sale prices per square foot between 1998 and 2007 (the height of the market) at 611 per cent, 456 per cent and 332 per cent respectively when compared with 312 per cent County-wide (Data Quick, 2009).3 For Santa Monica, the increase was slightly less than the County figure, but this reflected already high housing values and gentrification from the 1980s. Overall and when compared with London, there is no doubt that gentrification was far less sedimented and pronounced. Santa Monica has always been a comfortable coastal community, although some of its local policies remain to the left even within a recent intensification of housing prices and condo conversion. Venice, another coastal community to the south, is even more alternative and was once considered the last affordable oceanfront in Los Angeles County, yet seems to be gentrifying through overspill from Santa Monica, as well as the voracious appetite to live near the ocean. Both Hollywood and Downtown were once attractive areas that suffered massive disinvestment in the 1950s-1980s period and have only recently, through new mega projects and

loft conversion laws, become part of an arc of upgrading from Downtown north-west and west through Koreatown, SilverLake, Los Feliz towards Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills. Finally, all eight study areas featured a significant presence of social services, based on a scan of the service directories identified under the next subsection; in fact, many featured service hubs whose agglomeration of social services attracted a wide swathe of vulnerable clients. Downtown Los Angeles, and particularly Skid Row to its eastern boundary, was by far the largest service hub, with over 25 per cent of the entire emergency shelter capacity for the entire County. In London, Islington was known for its significant clustering of nationally focused social services, drawn to the area by subsidised rents—the head of the voluntary association consortium reminded me that 14 per cent of the borough workforce was in the voluntary sector. Given the important presence of social services, the eight study areas differed from more established, homogeneous and defended wealthy inner enclaves such as Kensington (London) and Beverly Hills (Los Angeles) that were too expensive, lacked nearby low-income clientele or never welcomed social services at any time. Sampling Frame and Expected Outcomes

I found it necessary to select social services across these eight study areas in order to seek evidence of displacement between 1998 and 2008. Social services were defined not by agency but by individual facility, such that one agency may have multiple facilities in different locations. A service universe had to be constructed for the start-point (1998) and end-point (2008) of the study period, in order longitudinally to sample and track movement (voluntary and involuntary) of social services.4 The databases also had to feature a wide range of social services that extended beyond (emergency) homeless services to encompass other direct services


such as food, employment, substance abuse treatment, health and housing, as well as advocacy services that work on behalf of the ‘indirect other’ (Brandsen et al., 2005). In Los Angeles, the 1998 database was adapted from the Los Angeles County InfoLine database, while the 2008 service database was based on the current LA County 211 database, which effectively replaced Info-Line (Marr et al., 2009). Both of these databases have the purpose of allowing citizens to search for specific services. For 1998, 376 unique facilities were located in the four study areas; in 2008, the figure was 429. In London, the 1998 and 2008 service universe was created through a combination of the following annualised databases: Homeless London (national web-based data service providing details of services for homeless people and other needy groups), Voluntary Action Council databases for each of the four boroughs under study (IVAC, LVAC, SVAC, WAC), UK Advice Finder (national database on voluntary sector), NHS (national healthbased organisations), Guidestar (on-line database of charities and voluntary organisations) and LORECA (database for refugees and asylum-seekers). When standardised, these databases produced 214 facilities in 1998 and 273 facilities in 2008. Three sample frames were constructed, all with varying intensities of longitudinal tracking. The sampling strategy for the first and third samples, following the need to capture a wide diversity of social services that may be subject to displacement, was purposive rather than random or stratified. I relied on what Lofland et al. (2006, pp. 91–93) term “maximum variation sampling”, in which the researcher seeks out the variability within the known universe (in this case, the service databases) (see Marr et al., 2009). As previously mentioned, my strategy involved ensuring that the sampling captured a broad range of social services. The second sampling frame was based on a convenience strategy.

Sample frame 1: 1998–2008, same borough/ area. Twenty facilities were sampled within each borough and area in order to maximise variation, with the sampled facility having the same name in 1998 as in 2008 but not necessarily the same address. This, along with the relatively large geographies covered by the boroughs and areas, went some way to avoid the common error of sampling displacement only in the immediate area where it has occurred. After the first contact, a convenience strategy was used to follow up facilities through actual interviews, in which the interviewee was asked if their name could be used to recontact non-responsive sampled facilities. Sample frame 2: 1998 only, any borough/ area. The sampling of facilities that began the study period in one of the eight study areas, only to disappear off the list in 2008, is essential, again to avoid the common error of selection bias. Since by definition it was very difficult to track these facilities with the service databases—they would only show up if they moved to one of the other three boroughs or areas—this group was contacted through a convenience sample in which facilities interviewed through sample frames 1 and 3 were asked if they knew of any services displaced during the past 10 years and how to find them (see Slater, 2004, for a similar approach). This strategy took advantage of the tightly knit nature of many social service communities. Sample frame 3: 2008 only, any borough/ area. Ten facilities were sampled to maximise variation among those services who had entered the boroughs or areas during the 10-year study period. Once again, following the first contact, a convenience strategy was used to follow up facilities through actual interviews, in which the interviewee was asked if their name could be used to recontact nonresponsive sampled facilities.


A total of 240 facilities were contacted through the service databases between November 2008 and March 2010, 30 in each borough/area. They were contacted through three mechanisms: formal letters (Los Angeles), phone calls (London), then both followed up by e-mail contact. Overall, the response rate was relatively low, at 34 per cent (81 facilities), but fairly typical for studies of the voluntary sector (Trudeau, 2008). Those who did respond tended to be interested in the topic, had themselves been displaced, wanted to draw attention to their services or were simply accommodating. Interviewing was essential, given that the service databases did not actually give the reasons behind (or the nature of) movements—i.e. was it just voluntary movement, was movement caused by gentrification or other circumstances such as changes in funding, need for

expansion and so forth. I administered a semistructured interview to one key informant for each facility—preferably a longstanding staff member. All facilities were asked to provide their aims, a basic profile of their clients, a brief history, funding streams and their rationale for their current location. The final set of questions focused on their locational history since 1998, including reasons for any movements and whether they were voluntary or involuntary in nature, and whether there were gentrification effects. This information was supplemented by official documents. All facilities remained anonymous. In order to ensure conceptual clarity from the onset, interview data were analysed through five pre-defined outcomes adapted and modified from work by Marcuse (1985) and Slater (2006), set out in Table 1. The first

Table 1. Expected outcomes for the 1998–2008 period Movement 1998–2008

Voluntary or involuntary

Concept

Voluntary immobility Involuntary immobility (entrapment)

No

Voluntary

Hartman’s (1984) ‘staying put’

No

Involuntary, and due to gentrification

Voluntary mobility

Yes

Voluntary

Involuntary mobility (displacement)

Yes

Involuntary, and due to gentrification

Indirect displacement pressure

Not applicable

Due to gentrification

Entrapment, where gentrification has effectively excluded any opportunity to relocate or expand in situ; precursor to Marcuse’s (1985) concept of exclusionary displacement.a Captures voluntary movement within, into or beyond the study areas Captures Marcuse’s (1985) concept of ‘direct last-resident displacement’ within, into or beyond the study areas Captures indirect pressure in terms of negative neighbourhood change, rising NIMBY and clientele displacement

Outcome

Marcuse (1985) distinguished between direct displacement—in terms of physically being forced out or economically through higher rents—and indirect displacement, whether exclusionary (when a household must move but cannot find a suitable location within the gentrified area and so is displaced beyond) or pressure to displace in terms of neighbourhood change (see also Slater, 2006). a


and second outcomes were separated from the third and fourth outcomes; this means that involuntary immobility was not measured if it followed mobility, and vice versa. And given the focus of this study, I was only interested in the gentrification effects as they related to involuntary circumstances, whether immobility (entrapment) or mobility (displacement). The fifth outcome (displacement pressure) may be experienced by any facility, whether there is movement or not. Finally, I interviewed one community spokesperson for each borough or area in order to get a ‘big picture’ of gentrification, social change and social service dynamics within each study area (Newman and Wyly, 2006). These interviews were generated from the facility interviews using a convenience sample and included speaking to borough-based social service umbrella organisations, local politicians or planners. The locational data were analysed according to these expected outcomes, with a view to profiling displaced facilities in terms of experiences, type of facility, funding, ownership and so forth. Mapping of displaced facilities was also undertaken. Comparative Framework

Comparison is a strategy to reach a better understanding and for questioning complex patterns and generalisations of urban processes such as gentrification and its outcomes (Carpenter and Lees, 1995). I therefore pursued an analytical framework that facilitated interurban comparisons of displacement. This framework compared the profiles of the five expected outcomes between London and Los Angeles. A comparative approach is important to understand how the key outcome of displacement (but the other outcomes as well) work in different places—to build a ‘geography of displacement’ to show that it is not the same everywhere, yet still open to cross-cutting commonalities that validate (or negate) theory. This geography

must be sensitive to contextual specificities of the process while recognising more general factors. For instance, I expected that the very different gentrification contexts (in terms of intensity and temporal dimensions) of London and Los Angeles would be likely to influence the degree and patterns of displacement among social services.

Results by Expected Outcomes A total of 81 facilities were interviewed, featuring a combination of mostly direct and some indirect (advocacy) service providers (15 per cent of London and 10 per cent of Los Angeles facilities), as well as varied target populations, ranging from the elderly, refugees and unemployed to the sick, homeless and addicted. While some facilities were strictly advocates on behalf of larger communities—usually LGBT or specific ethnic groups—those who directly provided services in situ handled between 100 and 13 500 unduplicated clients on average a year. Although all facilities were non-profits (including two social enterprises), funding sources ranged widely, with a mixture of client fees, government grants, foundations and donations; annual budgets ranged from under $100 000 to over $5 million. Generally speaking, London facilities tended to be more dependent on government grants—frequently from the borough—than in Los Angeles, where public donations played a greater role. Finally, over half the facilities were in their present locations before 1998. Voluntary Immobility

The service databases revealed that, of the baseline 1998 facilities, 36 per cent in London and 40 per cent in Los Angeles had not moved between 1998 and 2008. However, this does not indicate how many of these non-movements were voluntary; the next sub-section focuses on involuntary immobility through the sample. Table 2 indicates that only 6 per cent of all facilities experienced what Hartman


Table 2. Expected outcomes by city, borough/area

London Islington Lambeth Southwark Westminster Los Angeles Downtown Hollywood Santa Monica Venice TOTALS (percentage)

Voluntary immobility

Involuntary immobility (entrapment) (due to gentrification)

3 out of 35 1 out of 8 1 out of 9 1 out of 11 None 2 out of 46 0 out of 17 0 out of 11 2 out of 11 0 out of 7 5 out of 81 (6)

18 out of 35 3 out of 8 2 out of 9 7 out of 11 6 out of 7 28 out of 46 15 out of 17 5 out of 11 4 out of 11 4 out of 7 46 out of 81 (57)

conventionally called ‘staying put’—that is, voluntary immobility. This exclusion from normal movement did not bother those facilities who prized their current central locations (or who occupied symbolically important space to their clientele) and would not want to become less accessible to their clientele base. One example was a housing development non-profit in Santa Monica that had bought in a highly coveted area only two blocks from the beach before the area became extensively gentrified; it felt no risk of being displaced and did not feel entrapped either, and had enough equity to move or relocate nearby. Interestingly, there were no instances of voluntary movement because of gentrification—i.e. ‘cashing out’. Involuntary Immobility (Entrapment)

Table 2 indicates that over half (57 per cent) of all facilities experienced involuntary immobility or entrapment. Outside displacement pressure, this was the most pervasive response among the 81 facilities. To these entrapped facilities, gentrification represented less the threat of direct displacement and more the inability to move and/or expand in situ,

Voluntary mobility

Involuntary mobility (displacement) (due to gentrification)

Displacement pressure (due to gentrification)




given that there were no feasible locational alternatives within a gentrifying city (Slater, 2006). Since gentrification was more likely to ‘lock in’ existing service hubs by making large parts of the (gentrifying) city off-limits, a dilemma arose whereby services maintained their central location but saw their clientele displaced well beyond. Moreover, pervasive gentrification made it virtually impossible for a more equitable dispersion of social services away from overburdened service hubs in Westminster, Downtown and Santa Monica. Although hardly the most favourable neighbourhood for its clients, large Downtown Skid Row emergency shelters (with up to 1000 beds) faced a blunt choice: either become entrapped or disappear entirely, since no other neighbourhood would accept such a burden (Reese et al., 2010). The situation whereby gentrification induced entrapment alongside displacement of residents has been described by Curran (2004) and Newman and Wyly (2006). Westminster may be considered the entry and showcase borough for London, with a high concentration of services that exert a strong pull on the service-dependent. Hence,


it has a disproportionately large number of rough sleepers who congregate around key transport hubs (especially Victoria train station). Since gentrification has been on-going since the 1970s, the social services I did interview had adjusted to the pressures of displacement, which may explain the low proportions of facilities experiencing displacement pressure and the high rates registering involuntary immobility. An interview with an advocacy centre for elderly residents in Soho in Westminster revealed a series of adaptive strategies that had served it well since 1995, including the obtaining of borough and local business support, as well as renting from a nearby church. Indeed, a number of facilities in Westminster were puzzled by the research itself, given that their areas had been gentrified as early as the 1970s or had always been upper class. Voluntary Mobility

Table 2 indicates that 28 per cent of facilities voluntarily moved; the service databases suggested that 10 per cent of 1998 facilities in London, and 9 per cent of 1998 Los Angeles facilities had moved as well, although again there is no way of knowing their in/voluntary natures. One example in Los Angeles occurred in Venice, where a community development non-profit upgraded its facility by moving to a larger, more strategically located venue in 2000, just before prices began to skyrocket. In London, a social enterprise that provided rough sleepers with employment as street magazine sellers moved twice (in 2000 and 2002) during the study period, always with the purpose of finding the most accessible and centrally located place for its working clients, although it did admit that it could no longer seek a better location given pervasive gentrification in inner London. Displacement

Table 2 indicates that 21 per cent of all facilities -23 per cent in London and 20 per cent in

Los Angeles—had experienced at least one instance of displacement during the 10-year study period. These proportions may well be underestimated, given the difficulty to identify services whose gentrification-induced displacement led to disbandment,5 as well as limitations of the service databases themselves that do not pick up smaller, potentially more vulnerable social services nor exits from the study areas. Yet the proportions may also be somewhat overestimated, given that responses may have been biased towards displaced social services wanting to tell their story. Nevertheless, the proportions, if annualised, were not entirely dissimilar from residential displacement estimates by Marcuse (1985) and Atkinson (2000) in London and New York City. Yet even if the proportions seemed low, gentrification-induced displacement was greatly significant to the 17 facilities. These included disruption and loss of clientele base, smaller premises, higher and more precarious rental agreements and lengthy efforts to find new premises within gentrifying neighbourhoods. Before developing a profile of the displaced facilities, it was useful to map them for London and Los Angeles (Figures 1 and 2).6 A visual analysis of the spatial patterns revealed the presence of service clusters (hubs), yet no obvious clustering of displacement. Most displaced services were renting from the private market7 at the time of displacement and found themselves involuntarily moving because of eviction and/or rent increases brought on by neighbourhood gentrification. Secondly, a majority were smaller than the average-sized facility in terms of client intake. Thirdly, they relied more on (erratic) donations and client fees than on government funding. Fourthly, advocacy services were more vulnerable to displacement than those providing direct services, possibly related to having less (or less consistent) government support given that advocacy may not be accorded equal importance. For instance, a poorly funded London LGBT advocacy service


Figure 1. London displacement patterns (1998 locations).

Figure 2. Los Angeles displacement patterns (1998 locations).


had been displaced in 2005 within Soho (Westminster borough), but decided to stay in the immediate area—and this despite the strong risk of displacement again—because of Soho’s symbolic importance to the community it represents.8 In Downtown Los Angeles, a homeless advocacy service was displaced in 2003 when their rented office was converted into lofts, but again decided to remain nearby to maintain symbolic (and geographical) links with their primary clientele. Fifthly, the majority served the most stigmatised clientele—namely, homeless individuals and persons with substance abuse issues and/or mental health problems. I now wish to give several examples of fairly straightforward cases of displacement through rising rents and eviction. The first example concerns a drop-in centre for Scottish rough sleepers in the Victoria Station area of Westminster borough. Partly due to a lack of financial support from the local authority, the centre had to move in 2003 because of much higher rents in the area, but managed to stay within close distance of their clientele base, albeit in much smaller premises. As of 2008, they were planning on moving again, this time to share accommodation due to continued financial pressures. The second example concerns a food delivery service for homebound clients (usually, but not exclusively, with HIV/AIDS), who were forced to move in 2007 from their Sunset Boulevard location because annual rents had gone from $138 000 in 1998 to $252 000 in 2006. They moved to a marginal location in Hollywood with less centrality, but perhaps not as important given that it is a delivery service. Moreover, their clientele base was concurrently dispersing from the Hollywood area as rents relentlessly increased from the early 2000s onwards. Some examples of displacement, however, were intensified by state-sponsored redevelopment and gentrification. Since 1998, two facilities had been asked to leave (with and without a relocation grant respectively) to

the heart of Downtown Skid Row (San Pedro Street, see Figure 2 inset) to make space for the gentrifying leading edge along Spring, Main and Los Angeles streets, a process ongoing since the early 1990s (i.e. two other facilities had been asked to leave in 1990 and 1994) (see Takahashi, 1998). This ‘managed displacement’ impacted an atypical group of facilities: they are large and owned, not rented. For instance, a large high-tolerance missionstyle shelter with over 200 beds was displaced in 2005 to what the director of public affairs called Skid Row’s “central core” along San Pedro Street, into a larger facility. This move was encouraged by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA)9 and the City of Los Angeles; as previously mentioned, no other area in the County would ever welcome such a large shelter. In 2010, a fifth facility (shelter and transitional housing for single women on the edge of Skid Row) moved, as the surrounding parking lot is becoming condos near Fourth Street and Los Angeles Street. With CRA assistance, the facility is moving to a city-subsidised facility in the heart of Skid Row, again to San Pedro Street. A similar process has been occurring in Hollywood, albeit without relocation assistance. I interviewed two facilities that had been displaced from more central locations in Hollywood to more marginal locations east and well away from redevelopment. The first service, a day centre for street kids, was evicted in 2001 near Hollywood and Vine. This is a site of significant state-subsidised gentrification, rising rents and more proactive BID security, all of which lead to their clients no longer being welcome ‘on the Boulevard’. They bought a smaller building on the fringes of Hollywood and paid it off in 2008. The second facility, a drop-in for street kids and travellers’ aid, was displaced eastwards in 2008 beyond the Hollywood study area entirely, when it could not find an appropriate and affordable replacement for its rented site. The drop-in was actually disbanded at the same time.


In London, several facilities were also forced to vacate from redeveloping areas near train stations through direct intervention from borough officials. Although outside the four study boroughs, the King’s Cross Station area (Camden borough) was extensively redeveloped from the late 1990s onwards. As the pace quickened in the 2000s, a soup run and selfproclaimed ‘one-stop shop’ for rough sleepers was evicted when it could not renew its planning permission in 2006 and was displaced into neighbouring Islington. Similar circumstances surrounded the displacement of a hostel in the redeveloping London Bridge Station area in Southwark, which essentially had become an extension of the financial core north of the Thames (Harris, 2008). In 1998, the hostel had been asked to leave Tooley Street, which is directly in front of London Bridge Station, to make way for the extensive redevelopment beginning at that time and the need to displace the visibly homeless/poor people hanging around the train station. The hostel relocated about 1 mile south-west of the original site, in an area that was far more mixed but that now is feeling displacement pressures once again. Finally, with greater gentrification comes the risk of community groups pressing for the displacement of social services deemed ‘problematic’. A prime example was the displacement of a children’s charity in Southwark that catered primarily to homeless Afro-Caribbean teenagers in 2004. Local community groups, especially those related to a nearby new-build condo, forced a retrospective planning review on the service and the borough, under pressure from these groups, offered it no support either to stay or to look for a new property. Although in a more heterogeneous location near Brixton (Lambeth), the service anticipated that future displacement was inevitable—as the director told me, a case of “too many Black boys” as clients. Indirect Displacement

My discussion is not limited, however, to actual instances of displacement, since facilities

reported displacement pressures (69 per cent) more often than displacement itself (21 per cent). These included displacement pressure stemming from negative neighbourhood change, NIMBY and clientele displacement. Virtually all facilities that experienced indirect displacement pressure mentioned the rising tide of NIMBY that accompanied gentrification. Many facilities spoke of a certain entitlement that came with large mortgages, that gentrifiers always think they can remake neighbourhoods to suit their needs, regardless of the longstanding legacy of services. Rising NIMBY meant less tolerance of existing service hubs (“we have too many services as it is”) and clientele, greater and more organised neighbourhood complaints and the concomitant need to be a ‘good neighbour’, and extreme difficulty in expanding. An apt example was the hostility towards soup runs in the Westminster borough. A study on soup runs noted that For some, soup runs are a valuable, lifesaving resource that help feed and support rough sleepers and other vulnerable people. For others, soup runs represent an outdated, poorly targeted and unco-ordinated service that supports and sustains damaging street lifestyles (Lane and Power, 2009, p. 3).

In 2007, there was a failed attempt to outlaw free food distribution in the borough (DeVerteuil et al., 2009), but soup runs persist even in the face of pervasive NIMBY, as well as the inability to access indoor service space because of gentrification. As one grassroots soup run near Victoria Station told me We need to balance accessibility to clients with the political pressure from the local council, building-based services and plans in 2012 for a homeless-free London.

In Los Angeles, client displacement was widespread, particularly in Downtown, Santa Monica and Venice. As the largest service concentration in the Western US, Downtown was, before the early 2000s, better known for its fortified citadels, service saturation


and homeless containment policy than for any attempts at incumbent gentrification (Reese et al., 2010). Downtown had since experienced a brutally swift (yet incomplete) upgrading, set within pre-existing and extreme inequality. Although the site of extensive redevelopment since the 1960s, it was not until the 1999 loft conversion bylaw, followed by the expansion of local BIDs, the aggressive evictions from SRO hotels and homeless sweeps under the 2006 Safer Cities initiative, that gentrification was “rolled out” onto the devalued parts of Downtown (including Skid Row), in the words of a frontline facility on Main Street (Reese et al., 2010). Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the Downtown council member reminded me that gentrification was hardly wholesale but rather a rebalancing of the social mix, with 6000 units of affordable housing (and over 2500 emergency shelter beds) firmly arrayed against 7000 high-end units, and that Downtown could no longer be the dumping-ground of last resort for the service-dependent County-wide. Sixteen out of seventeen Downtown facilities reported client displacement as an issue. Within Hollywood, gentrification had also been a state-sponsored strategy since the 1980s (Ruddick, 1996), but only took hold in the early 2000s, anchored by two mega projects at Hollywood-Highland and Hollywood-Vine, along with new metro stations, BIDs and much higher rents. Conversely, the Hollywood CRA, along with the police and local BIDs, have ensured that significant redevelopment and social service preservation are not mutually exclusive and therefore there has been little managed displacement when compared with Downtown.

Interurban Comparisons of Displacement As a first step, I used a t-test10 to see whether the number of displaced facilities was significantly different between the two cities.

Unsurprisingly, there was no statistically significant difference between London and Los Angeles. Although context and contingency matter in terms of the significant differences in the intensity and timing of gentrification in London and Los Angeles, systematic similarities arose between the two cities, eroding any expectation of an Atlantic gap in displacement patterns. More to the point, all but one of the five outcomes in Table 2 had roughly similar proportions when compared; the key difference was the much greater indirect displacement pressure in Los Angeles (85 per cent) versus 48 per cent in London. I can argue that this was due to the more established nature of gentrification in London, whereby facilities were more adapted to their environments (or would have already been displaced in earlier waves), while in Los Angeles gentrification was still somewhat novel (except for Santa Monica) and thus facilities were more vulnerable because they had little previous experience. Greater displacement pressure may also have arisen because of the much greater extent of homelessness in Los Angeles, which engenders more community opposition and NIMBY due to the higher visibility of clientele. The differing roles of the state may play a further part. In Los Angeles, there was less state support to cushion against gentrification (even in Santa Monica), while in London, social services tended to be more directly (and better) supported by local boroughs. The social service sector in Los Angeles reflected a more laissez-faire, Sunbelt model of government intervention, meaning that gentrification in Los Angeles was potentially more destabilising, especially if one takes into account the more blatantly revanchist tendencies in places like Downtown. Finally, the role of ‘race’ was potentially important, given the assumption that service-dependent populations in the US are frequently characterised as ethnic minorities and that their reliance on social services may be a further source of displacement and


NIMBY more generally (Betancur, 2002; Slater, 2004; Takahashi, 1998).

Beyond Displacement? Entrapment and Keynesian Relics While displacement was a significant phenomenon among social services in London and Los Angeles, suggesting a precarious geography of service provision, the evidence also suggested that other outcomes—especially involuntary immobility or entrapment—were even more widespread. Ironically, gentrification may have engendered less movement overall, a phenomenon recognised by Newman and Wyly (2006) in terms of long-term residents now trapped in heavily gentrified areas. Part of this paper’s contribution is therefore a broader understanding of how displacement may work alongside other gentrificationinduced outcomes, including entrapment. This contribution is itself an outcome of my innovative methodological approach that allowed the capture of more than just a displacement/no-displacement binary. Certainly, the strong presence of involuntary immobility complicates the power relations inherent in mobility. Hartman’s (1984) ‘right to stay put’ assumed voluntary immobility, but for many services, it is involuntary immobility that seems more prevalent and more irksome. Moreover, the notion of entrapment may complicate the ‘right to the city’ movement, which unproblematically assumes that ‘staying put’ is inherently beneficial. While this paper’s focus has been primarily empirical, the findings certainly contribute to broader theoretical concerns about urban neo-liberalism and the fate of ‘Keynesian relics’ (Hackworth, 2006). In profound ways, the relative immobility of social services sustained last-ditch spaces of care, refuge, sanctuary, difference, collective consumption and social reproduction. These holdouts of the public city, despite displacement pressure, persisted, if not openly opposed, the class

remaking of the inner city. In this sense, social service entrapment worked against concepts of annihilation, revanchism and collapse; service-dependent populations can never disappear entirely as long as there is a stable service geography to underpin them (see also DeVerteuil et al., 2009). Of course, this is geographically uneven; even within Los Angeles, the revanchism of Downtown was offset by the more supportive situation in Hollywood. The paper raised numerous questions about displacement, entrapment and the broader context of the gentrifying city. Areas for future research include how social service entrapment, itself a product of gentrification, may actually serve as a bulwark against further gentrification, but may also initially abet gentrification by obscuring the abrasive presence of the service-dependent. Further research is also required around different models of gentrification that underpin displacement patterns, to move beyond prototypical gentrification of strong-centre cities like London and New York City to embrace a wider range of more polycentric models, thereby extending in a modest way the ‘geography of gentrification’ literature (Lees et al., 2008).

Notes 1. Indeed, the self-proclaimed LA School said little about gentrification, given that its main focus was on how the periphery organised the (dystopian) centre (Reese et al., 2010). 2. As a further validation, all social services interviewed in Downtown, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice were asked whether their immediate neighbourhoods had gentrified since 1998; 43 out of 46 facilities responded positively to this question. 3. Data were acquired from Data Quick Real Estate services. The figures reported here were based on annual zip-code-level data, amalgamated by study area and weighted by sales volumes per year. 4. Given that I was interested in longitudinal tracking of social services over the study period, several larger databases that did not


have this time-sensitive component were not included. For instance, the head of the voluntary association consortium for Islington estimated up to 1800 social services in the borough alone in 2009! 5. Only two disbanded facilities were identified from the displaced, in this case in 2006 near Waterloo Station in Lambeth and the Hollywood teen drop-in centre in 2008. 6. Displaced services were mapped only for their pre-displacement location, in order potentially to identify displacement ‘hot spots’. 7. A surprising number of facilities (n = 23) rented their premises for almost nothing, since they were renting from government-owned buildings or churches who are unlikely to raise rent or seek profits. 8. Several other (national) advocacy facilities (housing, refugees), although not displaced, also mentioned the importance of occupying symbolic space, in this case in central London. 9. The CRA is tasked with the contradictory mission of protecting social services and infrastructure, while also redeveloping Downtown LA (and other older, more heterogeneous areas such as Hollywood) into gentrified cores (Keil, 1998). 10. This test only speaks to the sampled population, not to the universe of all social services in the four borough/areas across the two cities.

Acknowledgements The author wishes to acknowledge the comments of Loretta Lees and Jon May; the work of James Marshall; the Nuffield Foundation; the University of Southampton School of Geography; and especially the social services themselves for their precious time.

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