IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v52y2020i5p837-855.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The story of property: Meditations on gentrification, renaming, and possibility

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Brahinsky

    (Politics and Urban & Public Affairs, University of San Francisco, USA)

Abstract

Property is a story. We assign land and resources legal status, and we narrate this as ownership and power. The interlocking loans, credit, and debt from which housing markets are compiled are built through narratives about value and its origins. The urban landscape, which is made by those markets, is produced through a confluence of human decisions, made with information about conditions and access. This information is based in stories—stories about what will sell, whether risk is viable, and what constitutes risk itself. These interlocking stories produce processes such as gentrification, one of the key contemporary challenges of booming cities in the Global North. Stories about the value of property, the primacy of growth, the role of race in valuation, and the urgency to invest in the urban landscape all shape gentrification. Meanwhile, stories from below have power too, offering important reframing. This paper examines two gentrifying neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, analyzes the role of narrative in framing urban change there, and identifies counter-narratives that offer tangible alternatives with the potential to drive decisions around urban development. In sum, this paper foregrounds the role of narrative and storytelling in defining the economic forces such as property that shape urban places.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Brahinsky, 2020. "The story of property: Meditations on gentrification, renaming, and possibility," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(5), pages 837-855, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:5:p:837-855
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19895787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X19895787
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X19895787?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rachel Weber, 2016. "Performing property cycles," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(6), pages 587-603, November.
    2. Jason Hackworth & Neil Smith, 2001. "The changing state of gentrification," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 92(4), pages 464-477, November.
    3. Manissa M. Maharawal & Erin McElroy, 2018. "The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: Counter Mapping and Oral History toward Bay Area Housing Justice," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 108(2), pages 380-389, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ingmar Pastak & Anneli KÄHRIK, 2021. "SYMBOLIC DISPLACEMENT REVISITED: Place‐making Narratives in Gentrifying Neighbourhoods of Tallinn," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 814-834, September.
    2. Ingmar Pastak & Eneli Kindsiko & Tiit Tammaru & Reinout Kleinhans & Maarten Van Ham, 2019. "Commercial Gentrification in Post‐Industrial Neighbourhoods: A Dynamic View From an Entrepreneur’s Perspective," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 110(5), pages 588-604, December.
    3. Loretta Lees, 2003. "Super-gentrification: The Case of Brooklyn Heights, New York City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(12), pages 2487-2509, November.
    4. Lynda Cheshire & Robin Fitzgerald & Yan Liu, 2019. "Neighbourhood change and neighbour complaints: How gentrification and densification influence the prevalence of problems between neighbours," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(6), pages 1093-1112, May.
    5. Stuart Cameron & Jon Coaffee, 2005. "Art, Gentrification and Regeneration -- From Artist as Pioneer to Public Arts," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 39-58, April.
    6. Whittle, Henry J. & Palar, Kartika & Hufstedler, Lee Lemus & Seligman, Hilary K. & Frongillo, Edward A. & Weiser, Sheri D., 2015. "Food insecurity, chronic illness, and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area: An example of structural violence in United States public policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 154-161.
    7. Mark Davidson, 2008. "Spoiled Mixture: Where Does State-led `Positive' Gentrification End?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2385-2405, November.
    8. Alvaro Ardura Urquiaga & Iñigo Lorente-Riverola & Javier Ruiz Sanchez, 2020. "Platform-mediated short-term rentals and gentrification in Madrid," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(15), pages 3095-3115, November.
    9. Vanessa Mathews, 2014. "Incoherence and Tension in Culture-Led Redevelopment," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 1019-1036, May.
    10. Thomas Sigler & David Wachsmuth, 2020. "New directions in transnational gentrification: Tourism-led, state-led and lifestyle-led urban transformations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(15), pages 3190-3201, November.
    11. Justin Kadi & Sako Musterd, 2015. "Housing for the poor in a neo-liberalising just city: Still affordable, but increasingly inaccessible," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 106(3), pages 246-262, July.
    12. Martin J. Murray, 2021. "Ruination and Rejuvenation: Rethinking Growth and Decline through an Inverted Telescope," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 348-362, March.
    13. Edward Goetz, 2011. "Gentrification in Black and White," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(8), pages 1581-1604, June.
    14. Carl Grodach & Nicole Foster & James Murdoch, 2018. "Gentrification, displacement and the arts: Untangling the relationship between arts industries and place change," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 807-825, March.
    15. Mark Davidson, 2011. "Critical Commentary. Gentrification in Crisis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(10), pages 1987-1996, August.
    16. Shomon Shamsuddin & Lawrence J Vale, 2017. "Lease it or lose it? The implications of New York’s Land Lease Initiative for public housing preservation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 137-157, January.
    17. Arnoud Lagendijk & Rianne Melik & Freek Haan & Huib Ernste & Huub Ploegmakers & Serap Kayasu, 2014. "Comparative Approaches to Gentrification: A Research Framework," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 105(3), pages 358-365, July.
    18. Ismail, Muhammad & Warsame, Abukar & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2020. "Measuring Gentrification with Getis-Ord Statistics and Its Effect on Housing Prices in Neighboring Areas: The Case of Stockholm," Working Paper Series 20/19, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    19. Amy Spring & Kayla Charleston, 2021. "Gentrification and the Shifting Geography of Male Same-Sex Couples," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1163-1194, December.
    20. Soyoung Han & Cermetrius Lynell Bohannon & Yoonku Kwon, 2021. "Degentrification? Different Aspects of Gentrification before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:5:p:837-855. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.