SAANZ Conference 2019

In the decade between 2007 and 2017 London changed fundamentally. This lecture is about how the actions of the transnational über-wealthy — the “have yachts” — impinged on the life-worlds of the “merely wealthy” — “the haves.” The lecture will explore the conceptual utility of gentrification as a way of thinking about these seismic urban changes, and concludes that profound socio-spatial changes and new intensities in the financialization of housing, neighborhood tensions, and cultural dislocations are reshaping London as a plutocratic city and the lives of those who live there in historically unprecedented ways. Even the concept of “super-gentrification” does not adequately frame these circumstances.

Sponsored by BRANZ.