The Injustice of Gentrification

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231178295
• Author: Dr. Joe Hoover
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231178295

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(6) 925 –954

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00905917231178295

journals.sagepub.com/home/ptx

Article

The Injustice of

Gentrification

Joe Hoover1

Abstract

Discussion of gentrification is ubiquitous in cities around the world. And while

criticism of it is common, there is still considerable contestation over whether

gentrification is unjust. Political theorists have recently turned their attention

to the normative evaluation of gentrification, especially the displacement

of long-term residents from neighbourhoods experiencing redevelopment

and reinvestment. Two important limitations in this recent work are, first,

a narrow focus on the link between gentrification and displacement, and

second, the injustice of gentrification has been evaluated in light of abstract

ideals of justice divorced from the lived experience of its harms. Although the

emerging literature usefully identifies some of the harms of gentrification, it fails

to recognise the full extent of the injustice of gentrification. To address these

limitations, I argue the normative evaluation of gentrification should start with

a conceptualisation of the problem grounded in the experience of its negative

effects. Further, employing a more comprehensive conceptualisation of

gentrification’s negative effects reveals it to be a distinctive and encompassing

urban injustice better understood by examining how gentrification is defined by

harmful inequalities of political power, leading to exploitation, dispossession,

displacement, marginalisation, and violence.

Keywords

gentrification, cities, injustice, inequality, grounded normative theory,

pragmatism

1School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Joe Hoover, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London,

Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK.

Email: j.hoover@qmul.ac.uk

1178295PTXXXX10.1177/00905917231178295Political TheoryHoover

research-article2023

926 Political Theory 51(6)

1. For example, see Cortright (2015) and Hancox (2016).

Many of us are troubled by gentrification, as new resources and actors pro-

foundly transform the urban landscape. For some, this is welcome and bene-

ficial, but for others it is threatening and harmful. Reporting on gentrification

reflects this uncertainty of public judgment, as journalists both celebrate and

lament its effects.1 And while developers and investment-friendly think-tanks

sing gentrification’s praises (Duany 2001; Vigdor 2002), some affected indi-

viduals and communities resignify it as social cleansing (Taylor 2017), colo-

nisation (Lopez 2020), or genocide (Alkebulan-Ma’at 2018). Despite its

ubiquity, the moral significance of gentrification is not well understood, com-

plicating our attempts to judge if it is unjust or not.

Although the study of gentrification in the social sciences has deepened

our understanding of its nature and causes, the normative judgments of criti-

cal scholars tend to be presumed rather than explicitly defended. Given this

lacuna, political theory has turned its attention to gentrification, with authors

examining whether it is morally wrong or unjust. There are two important

limitations in this work thus far. First, political theorists have narrowed their

focus to the link between gentrification and displacement, in which long-term

residents are forced from their neighbourhoods. And second, gentrification-

induced displacement is evaluated via the application of principles derived

from versions of what Goodhart (2018) calls ideal moral theory (pp. 23–27).

There are sound practical reasons to narrow the scope of inquiry, and analys-

ing the phenomenon in relation to well-known normative criteria clarifies

some of the harms associated with displacement. The existing literature,

however, does not fully grasp the injustice of gentrification, remaining within

what Shklar (1990, 17–19) terms the normal model of justice, which under-

stands injustice as “the absence of justice” (p. 15). In place of the normal

model, Shklar (1990, 85–90) advises us to attend to the democratic sense of

injustice arising from experiences of social inequality, unfair treatment, and

affronts to human dignity. Attending to the democratic sense of injustice

requires an engagement with the lived experience of gentrification, opening

the way for an evaluation better capturing its distinctive harmful effects.

What does it feel like to have your home destroyed, to be forced out of

your neighbourhood, and to lose your community? Moulden (2021), an urban

justice activist, recounts the harms caused by the destruction of three housing

developments in a single year. Gentrification, he argues, damages individuals

and communities through the immediate material and psychological loss of

homes and neighbourhoods, as well as the long-term damage done by forced