In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I spoke to scholar, activist, author and feminist totem, Leslie Kern, about Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies, which she published with Verso in 2022. In Leslie and my conversation we speak broadly about her work and approach, some themes from the book, and how resistance is not just necessary, but possible too.

in 1964 Ruth Glass, in her introduction to London: Aspects of Change, named the phenomenon: ‘One by one, many of the working class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle classes—upper and lower. Shabby, ‘modest mews and cottages—two rooms up and two down—have been taken over, when their leases have expired, and have become elegant, expensive residences. […] Once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district, it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced, and the whole social character of the district is changed […] The invasion has since spread.’

Glass implied that what is presented as urban improvement is in fact a reassertion of class hierarchy in spatial form. In recent years things have moved on, away from what might be seen as an evolutionary process of cultural and economic enrichment , where artists, bohemians, thinkers and web designers find space for their creative praxis. Now the market makes it, and the government spends its taxes to make it more likely to occur.

Leslie can be found on her website, linked above, as is the book.

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Image credit: Ambrose Gillick.