Gentrification as a Value Struggle in the Global City

Abstract

Gentrification is said to be the return of the middle class to the city. Neil Smith suggests, however, that gentrification is not to be seen simply as a “return” but also as a form of “class struggle.” This paper examines the process of gentrification and the antigentrification movement in the Lower East Side of New York City. It maintains that this struggle should be seen as a struggle over the urban commons and therefore as a contemporary manifestation of primitive accumulation. Considering (anti-)gentrification as a “class struggle” or as a value struggle in the context of the global city, it shows that gentrification is a necessarily unsettling and unstable process.