Sol Gamsu - The re-location of elite and middle-class schools

Sol Gamsu, King's College London, discusses his article "Moving up and moving out: the re-location of elite and middle-class schools from central London to the suburbs". Download the article here: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/27/0042098015601593.abstract?rss=1

Collective or individual titles? Conflict over tenure regularisation in a Kenyan informal settlement

Andrea Rigon - University College London, UK

http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/05/0042098015602658.abstract?rss=1

The urban regeneration of poor neighbourhoods is an increasingly common intervention in cities across the world. These interventions are often accompanied by market displacement and gentrification, processes through which some local residents benefit from the increased value of their properties whilst others cannot afford to continue living in the area and are replaced by more affluent people. A key policy concern is therefore the ways in which such interventions can protect current residents from displacement and allow them to remain in their neighbourhoods. In the context of fast growing African cities – where land is rapidly appreciating and often contested – ensuring that residents of informal settlements, particularly tenants, can continue living in their settlements of origin after regeneration interventions is particularly challenging.

My research analyses a specific slum-upgrading project in an informal settlement of Nairobi in which there were different interests amongst diverse groups of residents. I explore the negotiations over tenure regularisation, including in particular the proposed use of a collective form of land titling through the creation of a Community Land Trust, explicitly with the aim of reducing displacement and gentrification. While at first glance a very attractive option, I argue that such tenure reforms are always shaped by context-specific power relations, and that in this particular case the process came to be dominated by the implementers’ need to maintain fragile agreements with local elites in order to avoid conflict. Elite pressure led to a change in project’s objectives, which makes it more difficult for tenants to afford living in the settlement in the long-term. Ultimately, then, what my case shows is that tenure reforms are based on different ideas of whose rights should be recognised and competing claims that are both negotiated through and shaped by the implementation process.

This research contributes to policy-oriented and theoretical debates on how to approach the complex task of upgrading informal settlements, which now host a quarter of the world’s urban population and over 60% of Africa’s urban population, according to UN-Habitat. While policy innovation, in terms of new tenure approaches is sorely needed, any project should be aware that technical solutions are likely to fail if they do not take into consideration power relations and how these shape implementation through the daily encounters between different groups of residents and project implementers. In particular, urban land reform outcomes are likely to be shaped by local power relations and the relative power of state and non-state actors involved in the process of detailed planning and implementation rather than land policy decisions taken at higher levels.

Transforming transport planning in the postpolitical era

Crystal Legacy (Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Australia)

 

http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/27/0042098015602649.abstract

This research examines the transformation of the democratic systems that support transport decision making in Australian cities. The focus of the paper is the controversial East West Link road tunnel proposed for the inner suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. Following the state government decision to fast track the signing of the contracts for this project, concern that this would remove public debate about the efficacy of the proposed tunnel eventually proved unfounded. Instead, the closing down of debate by the government spurred debate to occur elsewhere.  My ambition in this project was to understand the intricacies of the opposition to this controversial road project, but, more specifically, to examine the ways in which different community-based groups organised to stop a project and do so in a way that offers a transformative urban transport agenda for the State. When a government deliberately closes its door to open citizen engagement, particularly around discussions of transport priorities, I was interested in investigating how community based groups and individual residents alike can move beyond NIMBY-focused and site specific agitation to garner a spatially dispersed re-politicisation of urban transport priorities? I set out to consider how a reconceptualisation could transpire, and in what ways could a political orientation of the problem provide a platform for a redemocratisation of transport planning?

When the research commenced, I was nearing the end of my semester of teaching Integrated Transport Planning. Motivated by the high level of student activism that catalysed the creation of the Students Linking Melbourne Sustainably (SLiMS) group, my research assistant Daniela Minicucci and I set out to follow and engage groups like SLiMS through an ethnographic study of the politicisation of transport in Melbourne. This included participation in community organised street protests, engagement in public forums and debates about urban transport policy at community meetings and in the media. I also followed Twitter feeds and hastage discussions as well as participated in meetings with leaders in the community campaign against the East West Link.  To develop a more robust understanding of the motivations and strategies embraced by the groups, and to help with my analysis of the variety of ways these groups were working collectively to stop the project, I also conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with the lead campaigners. Even though the substantive aspect of my research focused on a 6 month period of state-led community engagement with a highly flawed Comprehensive Impact Statement process, my interest in these groups continued unabatedly into the state election in November 2014 when, following months of political pressure from these groups in the lead up to the election, and after signing the contracts, the party in power was defeated. Through the campaign, which included savvy engagement with the political parties and major media outlets, the community-based groups were able to position the project onto the state’s political agenda in the lead up to the election. This enabled the newly elected government to remove the East West Link from the top of the transport infrastructure priority list following the election. Shortly thereafter the contracts were broken.

The paper’s contribution is to illustrate how the politics of transport evolves and is played out.  Any decision to remove the community from the processes that determine the priorities of transport investment, are inherently political decisions and therefore any attempt to depoliticise decision making, be that through streamlining decision making or by narrowing the scope for citizen participation, only serves to hyper politicise projects. A key conclusion of the paper is the need for new urban governance settings that both respond to and embrace the political aspects of transport planning and decision making.  But in the absence of inclusive governance arrangements, politically engaged citizens will go to great lengths to create their own spaces where deliberations about transport problems, priorities and investments can occur, but in a manner that allows alternative transport futures to also be considered. These informal processes offer an illustration of the redemocratisation of transport planning. To the extent that citizens can influence transport decision making (and they can!), a closed system of transport decision making does not close down debate and community action.   

 

The impact of highway proximity on distribution centres’ rents

Gaston Tchang, VU University Amsterdam

http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/28/0042098015596930.abstract

Driving along Dutch highways I often see distribution centres located in the vicinity. I wondered if the reason just is just to be seen by passing traffic or, thinking as an economist, that there is another cost-related reason. With common sense one expects higher rents near highways due to scarcity of land adjacent to highways and as well as being visible to passers-by.

When I was searching the literature on the impact of the proximity of highways on rent, I found that most  of the articles were about the impact on housing rent. There were also a lot of studies about the impact on office rents. But I couldn't find one about the impact on distribution centres' rent. Given the importance of transport costs in the logistics industry it is surprising that there had been no previous study. So this was a good reason to conduct a study myself. Since I am familiar with logistics in the Netherlands, and had access to Dutch data, I focussed my research on the Netherlands.

My aim was to find out how much rent of a distribution centre increases when accessibility improves. I have taken two different approaches. First I looked to the impact of the proximity to the nearest highway. Then I examined the impact of the distance to the centre of the Netherlands on the basis that a central location can reduce transport costs for logistic companies. I found an increasing rent for a decreasing distance. When distance decreases transport costs will be saved. As long as transport cost savings exceed the increased rent it is more attractive to choose a location closer to a highway or closer to the centre of the Netherlands. Transport costs are a major cost for logistic companies.

The results found are entirely plausible and may be useful for policymakers which are responsible for the development of industrial areas, e.g. at a local level to set the land rent and e.g. at a regional level to determine the zoning of land (e.g. by limiting the surface of industrial area allocated to distribution centres in a region). I suspect that real estate developers already advantage from the willingness of logistic companies to pay higher rents to locate  close to highways since land rent is often determined per industrial area or by the type of industrial activity according to the zoning.

The abstract can be found at: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/28/0042098015596930?papetoc

                                           (Author's own)
                         
                               A distribution centre located in an industrial area in the Netherlands

Displacement and gentrification in England and Wales: A quasi-experimental approach

Lance Freeman (Columbia University, USA), Adèle Cassola (Columbia University, USA), Tiacheng Cai (Columbia University, USA)

Abstract can be found: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/03/0042098015598120

The question of gentrification’s impact on low-income households remains a topic of heated debate among urban researchers and residents. In recent years, numerous studies have been dedicated to examining one of the most traumatic potential outcomes of gentrification – the direct displacement of the neighborhood’s existing residents. Several U.S.-based studies have examined whether gentrification leads to displacement using quasi-experimental methods, which try to account for what would have happened in the absence of gentrification by comparing mobility rates in neighborhoods that are similar but for experiencing gentrification. These studies have found no consistent evidence that low-income households are more likely to move out of gentrifying than non-gentrifying neighborhoods. Our study was motivated by the notion that because people move less frequently on average in England and Wales than in the US, it might be easier to distinguish patterns of elevated mobility due to gentrification in this context.

Using the British Household Panel Survey, we compared households’ odds of moving in three types of neighborhoods: disadvantaged neighborhoods that did not gentrify between 2001 and 2009; disadvantaged neighborhoods that gentrified during this period; and relatively advantaged neighborhoods. For the entire sample of England and Wales, low-income and working-class households living in gentrifying neighborhoods were not more likely to move than comparable households in neighborhoods that did not gentrify. In London, on the other hand, low-income households in gentrifying neighborhoods were more likely to move than similar households in non-gentrifying neighborhoods. However, because this finding did not hold up when different measures of gentrification were used, we cannot make a strong case that gentrification leads to displacement based on this analysis.

The lack of compelling evidence of gentrification-induced direct displacement in this and previous quasi-experimental studies is hard to reconcile with first-hand accounts of direct displacement. Displacement from gentrifying neighborhoods clearly occurs, so why have so many statistical studies failed to detect higher rates of mobility among vulnerable residents from these neighborhoods?

We suggest the following explanation. Turnover rates tend to be higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods, but when such neighborhoods gentrify, some residents who would otherwise have left might decide to stay put because they like the neighborhood’s trajectory. Others might dislike the changes and move. Others might wish to move, but find no acceptable alternatives. Still others will be directly displaced from the neighborhood. However, the increased mobility due to direct and indirect displacement and the reduced mobility among those who stay put may balance each other out. Consequently, the overall rate of mobility may differ little from what existed prior to gentrification.

A failure to statistically detect direct displacement therefore does not mean that we can write off gentrification as a policy concern. Moreover, direct displacement is not the only form of displacement experienced by residents of gentrifying neighborhoods. Those who are not directly displaced may nonetheless feel alienated by the changes occurring in their neighborhood. Gentrification may also reduce the stock of low-cost housing in affected neighborhoods, thus excluding low-income households that otherwise would have moved in. Given the complexity of these processes and their enduring impact on urban residents and neighborhoods, there is no doubt that gentrification and displacement will continue to inspire much debate and research in the years to come.  

Better residential than ethnic discrimination! Reconciling audit andinterview findings in the Parisian housing market

François Bonnet (CNRS, UMR Pacte), Etienne Lalé (Department of Economics, University of Bristol), Mirna Safi (Department of Sociology and OSC, Sciences Po) and Etienne Wasmer (Department of Economics and LIEPP, Sciences Po)

Abstract can be found: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/28/0042098015596107.abstract?rss=1 

We started out this research with two questions. First, is there a banlieue effect operating in the Parisian housing market, i.e. does living in a deprived neighborhood per se undermine the prospects for residential mobility? Second, is it possible to separate this effect from discrimination caused by another potential stigma, namely the ethnic origin (North-African background) of those living in the French banlieues? Answering these questions is of importance for a broad range of academics studying discrimination and the cumulative effects of residential and ethnic/racial inequalities. The French context makes this task all the more challenging and interesting. Indeed, the French Republican model embraces a color-blind, universalistic model of race relations, which notably implies rejecting ethnicity as the basis of categories for official statistics. Recent studies, partly in the aftermath of the 2005 urban riots in France, have challenged the myth of a color-blind society.[i] They provide evidence of discrimination in the labor market. However, at present, there is almost no audit study based evidence of discrimination in the housing market in France.

A distinctive feature of our research is to make complementary use of two methodological designs. We conducted: (i) an experimental paired-testing audit study involving (fictitious) housing applicants and (ii) a series of face-to-face interviews with real-estate agents in Paris and the Paris region. Thus, our research has potential of offering both statistical and discursive evidence on discrimination in the housing market. After juxtaposing the findings from the audit and the interviews, we do find an interesting paradox:

• While the current (alleged) residence of housing applicants has a significant negative effect in the audit, real estate agents clearly deny its relevance as a discriminatory factor affecting access to housing;
• Real estate agents overwhelmingly report that ethnic origin has a discriminatory impact, whereas ethnic origin has no significant effect in the audit when we control for the current residence of housing applicants.

We offer several hypotheses that may solve this apparent paradox. We especially favour the following two hypotheses which, in our view, should not be seen as mutually exclusive.

First, the findings could reflect statistical discrimination whereby real estate agents seek to proxy the risk of non-payment of the rent (insolvency). In particular, residential and ethnic origins could correlate with access to housing simply because real estate agents use these characteristics to infer the risk that truly matter to them. Real estate agents deny the relevance of residential origin as a discriminatory factor with good reasons, in that only insolvency is relevant. In the meantime, if residential origin is strongly correlated with the risk of insolvency, then controlling for this variable explains why ethnic origin does not play a statistically significant role in the audit study data.

            

The other hypothesis is that there is an ethnic stigma and that residential origin is used to proxy ethnicity. That is, it may be that overt information about ethnic origin (like, for instance, an African name) is not used to discriminate against housing applicants because such biased decisions appear highly undesirable. Strong correlates with ethnicity (like, for instance, residential origin) are instead used to select housing applicants. This would explain why real estate agents report that residential origin is not a discriminatory factor while ethnic origin is. This would also help understanding why, in the audit study, overtly signalling ethnicity through the housing applicant's name did not result in discriminatory behaviours.

The more important conclusion of our article is that the complementary use of different methodological designs helps overcome the shortcomings of each. In this respect, the paradox we find is anything but a weakness of this research: it proved very instrumental in developing rich hypotheses to understand discrimination.

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[i]      To our knowledge, the most comprehensive study is the audit conducted jointly by the ministry of labour and the International Labour Organization in 2008. The results, presented in a report written by Eric Cediey and Fabrice Foroni (“Discrimination in access to employment on grounds of foreign origin in France: A national survey of discrimination based on the testing methodology of the International Labour Office”), reveal  that employers prefer candidates perceived as being of “national” origin (French) to strictly identical candidates of African immigrant background in 80% of all cases.

13 out 17 organisations did not comply with CCTV regulations

Keith Spiller (Open University, UK)

Recently I rang the telephone numbers displayed on CCTV signs. After all, this is my right. By law CCTV cameras must be accompanied by signs that notify me I am being recorded and the signs must also provide contact information, just in case I want to see my images. When I sought those images from 17 different cameras only 4 provided my images.

I have been researching in the area of surveillance and surveillance studies for a number of years now and I have a deep interest in how laws governing aspects of surveillance actually work, as well as how people react and live with surveillance. CCTV is probably one of the most recognisable aspects of surveillance; indeed, it is the symbol that most often accompanies any mention of surveillance in the media. So, what better system to examine just how the regulations work in an urban setting.

The control of CCTV in the UK falls under the remit of the Data Protection Act (1998) and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Cameras monitoring private and public spaces for security purposes must adhere to the regulations set out in the Act.  Specifically CCTV operators and data managers must notify people that they are being recorded, must store images with ‘integrity’ and must provide data to anyone requesting their images.

On a mild November morning I walked around the centre of a south of England city and deliberately stood under visible CCTV cameras, in an effort to get myself caught on CCTV.  In total 17 cameras recorded my movement at 2 shopping malls, 3 department stores, 4 banks, 1 stadium, 1 railway station, 1 bus station, 1 university, 1 open street system, 1 town hall, 1 government building and 1 museum.

7 of these cameras had no visible contact information on their signs and of the 10 that did, 4 of the telephone numbers were dead or produced no response. I then resorted to the organisation’s webpages to find contact numbers. Which proved more fruitful, however even when contact was made, staff often did not have the correct information to hand or where unsure how to deal with my requests.

The standard way of asking for CCTV images is to submit a Subject Access Requests (SAR) and this is what I then did, writing to all 17 organisations. The responses I received detailed how on 4 occasions I did not appear in the footage, this despite standing for up to 2 minutes under cameras. My SARs on two occasion got ‘lost’ as the organisations had no record of receiving them, on other occasions my images had been deleted as systems automatically deleted files after 7 days -  this despite making my request within 24 hours of standing under the cameras. Further responses demanded £20 plus VAT to process the request, even when the fee an organisation can charge is only £10.

Evident is the poor ability of organisations to deal with requests for CCTV images or simply they don’t want the hassle, or quite possibly the camera are not on. Nevertheless, what has become clear is the ease of access to urban CCTV images is certainly not as straightforward as the legislation would like it to be. For more detail on this research please see ‘Experiences of accessing CCTV data: theurban topologies of subject access requests’ published in Urban Studies.