The new urban frontier of everyday evictions: Contemporary state practices of revanchism

Cooper, Vickie and Paton, Kirsteen (2017). The new urban frontier of everyday evictions: Contemporary state practices of revanchism. In: Albet, Abel and Benach, Núria eds. Gentrification as a Global Strategy: Neil Smith and Beyond. Routledge Critical Studies in Urbanism and the City. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 142–151.

URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/978131530750...

Abstract

In this chapter we look critically at the political economic landscape of evictions within the United Kingdom context in relation to austerity. Our principle argument is that the current and unprecedented rise in evictions in the United Kingdom is not an ‘organic’ market-led occurrence, but has instead been actively orchestrated. Today displacement is actively endorsed through state-level involvement via housing and welfare legislation and policy-making ushered in as austerity measures. As such evictions have become daily occurrences in the United Kingdom. Evictions in neoliberal economies are fast becoming the most common form of displacement with over 170 evictions per day in the United Kingdom (Ministry of Justice 2015), as well as an international rise in Ireland, United States, Spain, Germany, and Greece (European Action Coalition 2015, Desmond 2016). Understanding the contemporary effects of gentrification and eviction requires scrutiny of the processes at large. We begin this chapter by detailing the key ways that contemporary state-led gentrification has evolved, contributing to ‘state-led eviction’.

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