Requiem for Neil Smith
A Retrospective of the Author's Thought on Gentrification from the Lens of Critical Geography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i3.1378Keywords:
Gentrification, Neil Smith, critical geography, urban restructutingAbstract
This article aims to make a retrospective of the several theses that for decades characterized the work of Neil Smith on gentrification and the agents and processes inherent in this process. It is based on the discussion and reflection on the several perspectives of the Marxist paradigm of geography and its impact on the concepts and methodology used by Smith, from the late 1970s until the recent end of his academic career, to understand and analyze the process of gentrification as urban restructuring, within the theoretical and methodological framework of Critical Geography.
References
Badcock B. (1989). An Australian View of the Rent Gap Hypothesis. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 79(1): 125-145.
Baudrillard, J. (1975). The Mirror of Production. St. Louis, Telos Press.
Berry B. (1985). Islands of Renewal in Seas of Decay. In Peterson P E (eds.) The New Urban Reality. Brookings, Washington, DC: 69-96.
Bridge G., Butler T., Lees L. (eds.) (2012). Mixed Communities: Gentrification by Stealth? Polity Press, London.
Clark E. (1988). The rent gap and the transformation of the built environment: case studies in Malmö 1860-1985. Geografiska Annaler B, 70: 241-254.
Clark E. (1994). Towards a Copenhagen interpretation of gentrification. Urban Studies, 31(7): 1033-1042.
Clark E. (1995). The rent gap re-examined. Urban Studies, 32(9): 1489-1503.
Cowen D., Smith N. (2009). After geopolitics? From the geopolitical social to geoeconomics. Antipode, 41(1): 22-48.
Dear M., Scott A. (1981). Urbanization & Urban Planning in Capitalist Society. Methuen, London.
Gottdiener M. (1985). The Social Production of Urban Space. University of Texas, Austin.
Hammel D. (1999a). Gentrification and land rent: a historical view of the rent gap in Minneapolis. Urban Geography, 20(2): 116-145.
Hammel D. (1999b). Re-establishing the Rent Gap: An Alternative View of Capitalised Land Rent. Urban Studies, 36(8): 1283-1293.
Hamnett C. (1984). Gentrification and residential location theory: a review and assessment. In Herbert D, Johnston R J (eds.) Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in Research and Applications. Wiley & Sons, New York: 283-319.
Hamnett C. (1991). The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 16: 173-189.
Hamnett C. (1992). Gentrifiers or lemmings? A response to Neil Smith. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17(1): 116-119.
Hamnett C. (2000). Gentrification, postindustrialism, and industrial and occupational restructuring in global cities. In Bridge G, Watson S (eds.) A Companion to the City. Blackwell, Oxford: 331-341.
Harvey D. (1975). The geography of capitalist accumulation: a reconstruction of marxian theory. Antipode, 7: 9-21.
Harvey D. (1978). The urban process under capitalism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2: 101-131.
Harvey D. (1982). The Limits to Capital. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1985). The Urbanization of Capital. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1987). Flexible accumulation through urbanization: reflections on “post-modernism” in the American city. Antipode, 19(3): 260-286.
Harvey D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell.
Harvey D. (2001). Spaces of Capital. Towards a Critical Geography. Routledge, London.
Harvey D. (2006). Spaces of Global Capitalism. Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. Verso, London.
Harvey D. (2010). The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Harvey D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Verso, London.
Harvey D. (2013). Para Entender o Capital: Livro I. Boitempo Editorial, São Paulo.
Harvey D. (2014). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lees L., Slater T., Wyly E .(2008). Gentrification. Routledge, London.
Ley D. (1994). Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 12(1): 53-74.
Ley D. (1996). The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Marston S., Smith N. (2001). States, scales and households: limits to scale thinking? A response to Brenner. Progress in Human Geography, 25(4): 615-619.
Mendes L. (2010). O contributo de Neil Smith para uma geografia crítica da gentrificação. E-metropolis: Revista Electrónica de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais, n.º 1, pp.21-33.
Peet R. (1998). Modern Geographical Thought. Oxford: Blackwell.
Phillips M. (2005). “People in the Centre? The contested geographies of gentrification”, in M. Phillips (ed.), Contested Worlds: An Introduction to Human Geography. Aldershot, Ashgate: 317-351.
Slater T. (2014). There is nothing natural about gentrification. http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/there_is_nothing_natural_about_gentrification [access July 8th 2015]
Slater T. (2015). Planetary rent gaps. http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tslater/planetaryrentgaps.pdf [access July 9th 2015]
Smith N. (1979a). Toward a theory of gentrification: a back to the city movement by capital not people. Journal of the American Planning Association, 45: 538-548.
Smith N. (1979b). Gentrification and capital: theory, practice and ideology in Society Hill. Antipode, 11(3): 24-35.
Smith N. (1979c). Geography, science, and post-positivist modes of explanation. Progress in Human Geography, 3(2): 356-383.
Smith N. (1981). Degeneracy in theory and practice: spatial interactionism and radical eclecticism. Progress in Human Geography, 5(1): 111-118.
Smith N. (1982a). Gentrification and uneven development. Economic Geography, 58: 139-155.
Smith N. (1982b). Theories of underdevelopment. The Professional Geographer, 34: 332-337.
Smith N. (1984). Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. Blackwell, Oxford.
Smith N. (1986a). Gentrification, the frontier, and the restructuring of urban space. In Smith N, Williams P (ed.) Gentrification of the City. Allen & Unwin, London: 15-34.
Smith N. (1986b. Dangers of the empirical turn: some comments on the CURS initiative. Antipode, 19(1): 394-406.
Smith N. (1986c). On the necessity of uneven development. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 10(1): 87-104.
Smith N. (1987a). Gentrification and the rent gap. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77(3): 462-465.
Smith N. (1987b). Of yuppies and housing: gentrification, social restructuring and the urban dreams. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 5(2): 151-172.
Smith N. (1987c). Rascal concepts, minimalizing discourse, and the politics of geography. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 5(3): 377-383.
Smith N. (1990). Geography redux? The history and theory of geography. Progress in Human Geography, 14(4): 547-559.
Smith N. (1992a). Blind man’s bluff, or Hamnett’s philosophical individualism in search of gentrification. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17(1): 110-115.
Smith N. (1992b). History and philosophy of geography: real wars, theory wars. Progress in Human Geography, 16(2): 257-271.
Smith N. (1993). Homeless/global: Scaling places. In Bird J, Curtis B, Putnam T, Tickner L. (eds.). Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Routledge, London: 87-119.
Smith N. (1994). Geography, empire and social theory. Progress in Human Geography, 18(4): 491-500.
Smith N. (1995a). Gentrifying Theory. Scottish Geographical Magazine, 111(2): 124-126.
Smith N. (1995b). After Tompkins Square Park: degentrification and the revanchist city. In King A (ed.) Re-presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the 21st Century Metropolis. Macmillan, London: 93-107.
Smith N. (1996a). The New Urban Frontier. Gentrification and the Revanchist City. Routledge, London.
Smith N. (1996b). Gentrification, the frontier, and the restructuring of urban space. In Fainstein S, Campbell S (ed.) Readings in Urban Theory. Blackwell, Oxford: 260-277.
Smith N. (1996c). Of rent gaps and radical idealism: a reply to Steven Bourassa. Urban Studies, 33(7): 1199-1203.
Smith N. (1998). El Niño capitalism. Progress in Human Geography, 22(2): 159-163.
Smith N. (2000). Is a critical geopolitics possible? Foucault, class and the vision thing. Political Geography, 19: 365-371.
Smith N. (2001). Rescaling politics: geography, globalism, and the new urbanism. In Minca C (ed.) Postmodern Geography. Theory and Praxis. Blackwell, Oxford: 147-168.
Smith N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3): 427-450.
Smith N. (2003). Neo-Critical Geography, or, the flat pluralist world of business class. Antipode, 37(5): 887-899.
Smith N. (2005a). El redimensionamiento de las ciudades: la globalización y el urbanismo neoliberal. In Harvey D, Smith N (ed.) Capital Financiero, Propiedad Inmobiliaria y Cultura. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona: 59-78.
Smith N. (2005b). Geographers, empires and victims: A response. Political Geography, 24: 263-266.
Smith N. (2005c). The Endgame of Globalization. Routledge, London.
Smith N. (2008b). Contesting neoliberalism: Urban frontiers. Economic Geography, 84(3): 359-361.
Smith N. (2009). Ciudades después del Neoliberalismo? In Smith N, Observatorio Metropolitano, Rolnik R, Ross A, Davis M (ed.). Después del Neoliberalismo: Ciudades y Caos Sistémico. Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: 9-30.
Smith N. (2010a). The Revolutionary Imperative. Antipode, 41(1): 50-65.
Smith N. (2010b). Martial Law in the Streets of Toronto: G20, Security and State Violence. Human Geography, 3(3): 29-46.
Smith N. (2011). Uneven Development Redux. New Political Economy, 16(2): 261-265.
Smith N., Caris P., Wyly E. (2001). The “Camden syndrome” and the menace of suburban decline: Residential disinvestment and its discontents in Camden County, New Jersey. Urban Affairs Review, 36(4): 491-531.
Smith N., Duncan B., Reid L. (1989). From disinvestment to reinvestment: tax arrears and turning points in the East Village. Housing Studies, 4: 238-252.
Smith N., LeFaivre M. (1984). A class analysis of gentrification. In London B, Palen J (ed.) Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. State University of New York Press, Albany: 43-64.
Smith N., Low S. (2006). Introduction: The imperative of public space. In Low S, Smith N (ed.) The Politics of Public Space. Routledge, London: 1-16.
Smith N., Schaffer R. (1986). The gentrification of Harlem? Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76(3): 347-365.
Smith N., Williams P. (1986) Alternatives to orthodoxy: Invitation to a debate. In Smith N, Williams P (ed.) Gentrification of the City. Allen & Unwin, London: 1-12.
Wyly E., Hammel D. (1999). Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification. Housing Policy Debate, 10(4): 711-770.
Baudrillard, J. (1975). The Mirror of Production. St. Louis, Telos Press.
Berry B. (1985). Islands of Renewal in Seas of Decay. In Peterson P E (eds.) The New Urban Reality. Brookings, Washington, DC: 69-96.
Bridge G., Butler T., Lees L. (eds.) (2012). Mixed Communities: Gentrification by Stealth? Polity Press, London.
Clark E. (1988). The rent gap and the transformation of the built environment: case studies in Malmö 1860-1985. Geografiska Annaler B, 70: 241-254.
Clark E. (1994). Towards a Copenhagen interpretation of gentrification. Urban Studies, 31(7): 1033-1042.
Clark E. (1995). The rent gap re-examined. Urban Studies, 32(9): 1489-1503.
Cowen D., Smith N. (2009). After geopolitics? From the geopolitical social to geoeconomics. Antipode, 41(1): 22-48.
Dear M., Scott A. (1981). Urbanization & Urban Planning in Capitalist Society. Methuen, London.
Gottdiener M. (1985). The Social Production of Urban Space. University of Texas, Austin.
Hammel D. (1999a). Gentrification and land rent: a historical view of the rent gap in Minneapolis. Urban Geography, 20(2): 116-145.
Hammel D. (1999b). Re-establishing the Rent Gap: An Alternative View of Capitalised Land Rent. Urban Studies, 36(8): 1283-1293.
Hamnett C. (1984). Gentrification and residential location theory: a review and assessment. In Herbert D, Johnston R J (eds.) Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in Research and Applications. Wiley & Sons, New York: 283-319.
Hamnett C. (1991). The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 16: 173-189.
Hamnett C. (1992). Gentrifiers or lemmings? A response to Neil Smith. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17(1): 116-119.
Hamnett C. (2000). Gentrification, postindustrialism, and industrial and occupational restructuring in global cities. In Bridge G, Watson S (eds.) A Companion to the City. Blackwell, Oxford: 331-341.
Harvey D. (1975). The geography of capitalist accumulation: a reconstruction of marxian theory. Antipode, 7: 9-21.
Harvey D. (1978). The urban process under capitalism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2: 101-131.
Harvey D. (1982). The Limits to Capital. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1985). The Urbanization of Capital. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1987). Flexible accumulation through urbanization: reflections on “post-modernism” in the American city. Antipode, 19(3): 260-286.
Harvey D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, Oxford.
Harvey D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell.
Harvey D. (2001). Spaces of Capital. Towards a Critical Geography. Routledge, London.
Harvey D. (2006). Spaces of Global Capitalism. Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. Verso, London.
Harvey D. (2010). The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Harvey D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Verso, London.
Harvey D. (2013). Para Entender o Capital: Livro I. Boitempo Editorial, São Paulo.
Harvey D. (2014). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lees L., Slater T., Wyly E .(2008). Gentrification. Routledge, London.
Ley D. (1994). Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 12(1): 53-74.
Ley D. (1996). The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Marston S., Smith N. (2001). States, scales and households: limits to scale thinking? A response to Brenner. Progress in Human Geography, 25(4): 615-619.
Mendes L. (2010). O contributo de Neil Smith para uma geografia crítica da gentrificação. E-metropolis: Revista Electrónica de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais, n.º 1, pp.21-33.
Peet R. (1998). Modern Geographical Thought. Oxford: Blackwell.
Phillips M. (2005). “People in the Centre? The contested geographies of gentrification”, in M. Phillips (ed.), Contested Worlds: An Introduction to Human Geography. Aldershot, Ashgate: 317-351.
Slater T. (2014). There is nothing natural about gentrification. http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/there_is_nothing_natural_about_gentrification [access July 8th 2015]
Slater T. (2015). Planetary rent gaps. http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tslater/planetaryrentgaps.pdf [access July 9th 2015]
Smith N. (1979a). Toward a theory of gentrification: a back to the city movement by capital not people. Journal of the American Planning Association, 45: 538-548.
Smith N. (1979b). Gentrification and capital: theory, practice and ideology in Society Hill. Antipode, 11(3): 24-35.
Smith N. (1979c). Geography, science, and post-positivist modes of explanation. Progress in Human Geography, 3(2): 356-383.
Smith N. (1981). Degeneracy in theory and practice: spatial interactionism and radical eclecticism. Progress in Human Geography, 5(1): 111-118.
Smith N. (1982a). Gentrification and uneven development. Economic Geography, 58: 139-155.
Smith N. (1982b). Theories of underdevelopment. The Professional Geographer, 34: 332-337.
Smith N. (1984). Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. Blackwell, Oxford.
Smith N. (1986a). Gentrification, the frontier, and the restructuring of urban space. In Smith N, Williams P (ed.) Gentrification of the City. Allen & Unwin, London: 15-34.
Smith N. (1986b. Dangers of the empirical turn: some comments on the CURS initiative. Antipode, 19(1): 394-406.
Smith N. (1986c). On the necessity of uneven development. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 10(1): 87-104.
Smith N. (1987a). Gentrification and the rent gap. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77(3): 462-465.
Smith N. (1987b). Of yuppies and housing: gentrification, social restructuring and the urban dreams. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 5(2): 151-172.
Smith N. (1987c). Rascal concepts, minimalizing discourse, and the politics of geography. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 5(3): 377-383.
Smith N. (1990). Geography redux? The history and theory of geography. Progress in Human Geography, 14(4): 547-559.
Smith N. (1992a). Blind man’s bluff, or Hamnett’s philosophical individualism in search of gentrification. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17(1): 110-115.
Smith N. (1992b). History and philosophy of geography: real wars, theory wars. Progress in Human Geography, 16(2): 257-271.
Smith N. (1993). Homeless/global: Scaling places. In Bird J, Curtis B, Putnam T, Tickner L. (eds.). Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Routledge, London: 87-119.
Smith N. (1994). Geography, empire and social theory. Progress in Human Geography, 18(4): 491-500.
Smith N. (1995a). Gentrifying Theory. Scottish Geographical Magazine, 111(2): 124-126.
Smith N. (1995b). After Tompkins Square Park: degentrification and the revanchist city. In King A (ed.) Re-presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the 21st Century Metropolis. Macmillan, London: 93-107.
Smith N. (1996a). The New Urban Frontier. Gentrification and the Revanchist City. Routledge, London.
Smith N. (1996b). Gentrification, the frontier, and the restructuring of urban space. In Fainstein S, Campbell S (ed.) Readings in Urban Theory. Blackwell, Oxford: 260-277.
Smith N. (1996c). Of rent gaps and radical idealism: a reply to Steven Bourassa. Urban Studies, 33(7): 1199-1203.
Smith N. (1998). El Niño capitalism. Progress in Human Geography, 22(2): 159-163.
Smith N. (2000). Is a critical geopolitics possible? Foucault, class and the vision thing. Political Geography, 19: 365-371.
Smith N. (2001). Rescaling politics: geography, globalism, and the new urbanism. In Minca C (ed.) Postmodern Geography. Theory and Praxis. Blackwell, Oxford: 147-168.
Smith N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3): 427-450.
Smith N. (2003). Neo-Critical Geography, or, the flat pluralist world of business class. Antipode, 37(5): 887-899.
Smith N. (2005a). El redimensionamiento de las ciudades: la globalización y el urbanismo neoliberal. In Harvey D, Smith N (ed.) Capital Financiero, Propiedad Inmobiliaria y Cultura. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona: 59-78.
Smith N. (2005b). Geographers, empires and victims: A response. Political Geography, 24: 263-266.
Smith N. (2005c). The Endgame of Globalization. Routledge, London.
Smith N. (2008b). Contesting neoliberalism: Urban frontiers. Economic Geography, 84(3): 359-361.
Smith N. (2009). Ciudades después del Neoliberalismo? In Smith N, Observatorio Metropolitano, Rolnik R, Ross A, Davis M (ed.). Después del Neoliberalismo: Ciudades y Caos Sistémico. Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: 9-30.
Smith N. (2010a). The Revolutionary Imperative. Antipode, 41(1): 50-65.
Smith N. (2010b). Martial Law in the Streets of Toronto: G20, Security and State Violence. Human Geography, 3(3): 29-46.
Smith N. (2011). Uneven Development Redux. New Political Economy, 16(2): 261-265.
Smith N., Caris P., Wyly E. (2001). The “Camden syndrome” and the menace of suburban decline: Residential disinvestment and its discontents in Camden County, New Jersey. Urban Affairs Review, 36(4): 491-531.
Smith N., Duncan B., Reid L. (1989). From disinvestment to reinvestment: tax arrears and turning points in the East Village. Housing Studies, 4: 238-252.
Smith N., LeFaivre M. (1984). A class analysis of gentrification. In London B, Palen J (ed.) Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. State University of New York Press, Albany: 43-64.
Smith N., Low S. (2006). Introduction: The imperative of public space. In Low S, Smith N (ed.) The Politics of Public Space. Routledge, London: 1-16.
Smith N., Schaffer R. (1986). The gentrification of Harlem? Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76(3): 347-365.
Smith N., Williams P. (1986) Alternatives to orthodoxy: Invitation to a debate. In Smith N, Williams P (ed.) Gentrification of the City. Allen & Unwin, London: 1-12.
Wyly E., Hammel D. (1999). Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification. Housing Policy Debate, 10(4): 711-770.
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Published
2018-07-23
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Mendes, L. (2018). Requiem for Neil Smith: A Retrospective of the Author’s Thought on Gentrification from the Lens of Critical Geography. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(3), 618–633. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i3.1378
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