State-led gentrification and staying put : resistance in Nieuw-Crooswijk en Vreewijk

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State-led gentrification and staying put

Resistance in Nieuw-Crooswijk & Vreewijk

Daniël Bossuyt – 100079036 Bachelor Thesis

Supervisor: dr. Darshan Vigneswaran 30 June 2013

Word Count: 9567 (excluding references)

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1. Introduction

Gentrification has become the preferred urban policy instrument of choice for states all over the world. Public-private partnerships of city governments and property developers actively intervene in neighborhoods in order to change its socio-economic profile. The make-up of the neighborhoods changes, replacing the penniless by the more fortunate.

From a sporadic process restricted to the city-center of a few cities, it has spread both vertically and laterally. It is no longer exclusively found in central urban areas, but also in peripheral neighborhoods. Occurrences are not limited to the large cities of the Anglo-sphere, the phenomenon can now also be found in Rio de Janeiro or in Rotterdam (Smith, 2002: 439). In Rotterdam, 'urban restructuring' is on the forefront of the policy agenda. The municipal city government and housing associations seduce private developers to invest in owner-occupied housing disadvantaged neighborhoods. Public policy is used to spur gentri-fication of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

In contrast to the generalization of gentrification stands the absence of contestation. Never have sounds of opposition been as silent as in this phase. Despite the rigorous social consequences for which the process is known, of which displacement and loss of community are most infamous, open contestation is completely muted in some places, but less so in others (Slater, 2008: 220). The contrast with the seventies and eighties, when gentrification often caused citywide protests is stark (Smith, 2002: 442).

The absence of overt contestation sparks a few questions on gentrification. How do gov-ernments actually use gentrification as a policy instrument? How do people resist gentrifica-tion and what strategies do they use? Answering these quesgentrifica-tions contributes to a better understanding of the consequences of gentrification, how the process plays out in a local context and gives perspective on the role of agency in resistance.

Whereas much attention has been devoted to the causes of gentrification, its consequences remain under researched. According to Tom Slater this is part of the "eviction of critical per-spectives in gentrification research". He asserts that gentrification has been sugarcoated in public and policy discourse. "It no longer evokes thoughts of rent increases, landlord har-assment and working-class displacement, yet currently is more associated with lattes, art

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galleries and hip bars” (Slater, 2006: 739). Lance Freeman attacked Slater for his critical stance, asserting that ‘positive gentrification’ exists (Freeman, 2008). Slater accused him of being an apologist: "The suggestion that there can be ‘positive gentrification’ fails to appre-ciate that ‘gentrification’ was designed to capture and challenge the neighborhood expres-sion of class inequality." and "Of course gentrification can be positive — for gentrifiers, city managers and particularly the owners of capital". Further adding that social scientists are too busy preoccupied with making research ‘policy relevant’. This is on its own not prob-lematic, but a situation where “research funds tends to flow to researchers who convincing-ly propose that the ‘evidence’ will be ‘relevant’ to a mysterious group of ‘end users’” is (2008: 219). In other words, states rarely consult social science unless it supports the poli-cies they want to pursue. As a consequence, gentrification research has become largely one-sided and a legitimation of ‘neoliberal urbanism’. Have Lance Freeman and his associ-ates really sold their souls to the devil? It is possible that critical perspectives have dwindled as gentrification plays out more peacefully. Likewise it is possible that critical perspectives have dwindled because it has been harder to contest gentrification in general.

In his article in 2002 Neil Smith was the first to bring gentrification out of its local level and showed that it is tied to processes at the global scale such as globalization, neolib-eralization of welfare states and the unprecedented movement of financial capital. His ab-stract theory is most at home explaining gentrification in very broad terms. At the same time, he mentions that “gentrification has occurred in markedly different ways in different neighborhoods and according to different temporal rhythms”, specifying the need for a more contextual understanding of the process (Smith, 2002: 440). The danger of course, is that it becomes all about specifying local variations of the same story. (Van Gent, 2013: 504-505). This thesis contributes by bringing Smith’s abstract theory to a more contextual level.

Existing explanations on gentrification research tend to view residents in a passive sense. This is possibly the outcome of structural viewpoints that tend to downplay agency. Residents are seen as passive subjects to the decisions imposed upon them by states & property developers. Not much is known how residents may actually actively resist gentrifi-cation. An exception is the article by Newman and Wyly (2006), which looks at individual and household strategies for resisting displacement in New York City. The problem is that they primarily look at market-induced gentrification in the United States.

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In this bachelor thesis I investigate restructuring policy in Rotterdam, where the local munic-ipal government, housing associations and property developers actively pursue an agenda of gentrification. Rotterdam prides itself on being the ‘Manhattan on the Maas’. A reputation that it thoroughly deserves in terms of harsh neoliberal politics. If one Dutch city would be successful in quashing resistance to gentrification, it would probably be Rotterdam. Never-theless a lot of resistance to restructuring emerged in Vreewijk & Crooswijk. Using a combi-nation of in-depth interviews, policy documents and media sources, this thesis investigates how contemporary gentrification, manifested through restructuring policy, sparks resistance and how this plays out in the case of Rotterdam. Ultimately this thesis responds to Tom Slater’s call: “If we are to restore a critical agenda, it would seem of paramount importance to study how and at what spatial scales people fight for their right to place, or their right to be re-placed" (Slater, 2006: 220).

This thesis is structured as follows: in chapter 2 I give an overview of the rich literature on gentrification and sparse work on resistance to gentrification, concluding with expectations I derived from the both strands of literature. In chapter 3 I assert why Rotterdam is an opti-mal case for this research, I also line out the rationales for the methods of data collection I have used. In chapter 4 I draw from policy documents and newspapers to chart the devel-opment of Dutch urban policy, showing a trend of neo-liberalization. I use a historical mac-ro-to-micro approach, starting with a broad historical picture before moving on to Rotter-dam in recent years. In chapter 5 I closely investigate restructuring & resistance in Vreewijk & Crooswijk, using a combination of interviews and media sources. Finally I sum up my main findings in chapter 6, and point out avenues for future research.

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2. Literature Review

It is an understatement to state that there is a substantial amount of literature on gentrifi-cation (Van Gent, 2013: 503). Since its conception in the sixties, it has evolved into one of the most popular topics of urban inquiry. Furthermore, the concept has received wide-spread attention from journalists, policy-makers and politicians and is firmly rooted in con-temporary public discourse (Lees, Slater, Wyly, 2010: xvi).

This chapter is divided in three parts. In the first part I look at the theoretical debate on gentrification. The debate long focused at the causes of gentrification. With the generali-zation of gentrification, the role of the state became more prominent. As a policy instru-ment gentrification serves various purposes. In the second part I look at resistance to gentri-fication. I give an account of its historical development, look at why people choose to mobi-lize and also what strategies residents use. In the third part I sum up the expectations from the literature.

Causes of gentrification

Much of early research was devoted to the root causes of gentrification. Scholars squabbled over the question whether the process is caused by living preferences - consumption-side explanations - or the flow of capital - production-side explanations.

Production-side theories see gentrification as the outcome of the movement of capi-tal. An influential production-side theorist is Neil Smith. Trying to understand the puzzling back-to-the-city movement of capital, he developed the rent gap thesis. Central to which is "the disparity between the potential ground rent level and the actual ground rent capital-ized under the present land use" (Smith, 1979: 545). The actual rent gap itself is created through the devalorisation of land, created by disinvestment. The flow of capital to the place of highest return closes the gap. Gentrification is a back to-the-city movement of capi-tal. Demand-side explanations see gentrification as the outcome of changes in occupational structures and human cultural preferences. A class has emerged that has a disposition to-wards living in the inner-city. Gentrification is a back-to-the-city movement of people (Lees, Slater, Wyly: 2010: 67).

Over the decades, much of the debate’s intensity has worn out. Authors now argue that the divisions have been overdrawn (Lees, Slater, Wyly, 2007: xxii). Nowadays most

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scholars just acknowledge that “both production and consumption perspectives are crucially important in explaining, understanding and dealing with gentrification" (Lees, 2008: 190). Or as Eric Clark states: “Neither side is comprehensible without the other, and all present theo-ries of gentrification touch bottom in these basic condition for the existence of the phe-nomenon" (Clark, 2005: 261).

Defining gentrification

Before I move on to the generalization of gentrification and aims of state-led gentrification I want to clarify things by defining gentrification, not an easy task. A lot of its public and aca-demic appeal lies in its value as a catch-all and political term. (Lees, Slater, Wyly, 2010: 5). Tom Slater argues that gentrification encompasses all "production of space for consumption by more affluent and very different incoming population'' (Slater, 2004: 1145). I opt for a more flexible and applicable definition by Eric Clark, he asserts that gentrification is: “a pro-cess involving in a change in the population of land-users such that the new land-users are of a higher socio-economic status than the previous users, together with an associated change in the built environment through a reinvestment in fixed capital” (Clark, 2010: 25). The merit of this definition vis-à-vis Slater’s is that it touches with different explanations of the causes of gentrification. The definition itself does not determine the cause of the pro-cess; housing markets, people’s living preferences and state intervention can all play their part.

Forms of gentrification

Neil Smith was the first to bring gentrification out of its parochial preoccupation with root causes. He did this by linking gentrification to, neoliberalization and the unprecedented movement of financial capital. I will shortly sum up how this contributed to the generaliza-tion of gentrificageneraliza-tion.

Neo-liberalization is a “systemic change in the relation between the state, individual and market” (Van Gent, 2013: 504). Smith attributes the following characteristics to neolib-eralization: the idea of market superiority over the state, as well as placing market interests over the interests of “social reproduction”. This does not imply that there is no role for the

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state. Instead, it may serve to secure and expand the influence of the market. “Govern-ments have become agents of the market” (Smith, 2002).

Since the earlier 1990s, states have become even more closely involved, as gentrifi-cation has become an outright aim of urban governance. Policy-makers engage in partner-ships with property developers, part of a global trend towards “neoliberal urbanism” – ne-oliberalism on the urban scale - has made gentrification a “crucial urban strategy”. Neolib-eral urbanism relies on real estate development – this requires larger redevelopment initia-tives that generate higher returns and a bigger involvement of global capital into neighbor-hood scale developments.

States can assist directly in gentrification through upgrading the built environment or more indirectly by subsidizing property developers or providing financial incentives to mid-dle-class residents. Governmental actors feature most prominently on this side of the Atlan-tic. Mark Davidson demonstrates how in the United Kingdom an policy programme of bring-ing middle classes back to the city has been pursued since the early 2000’s (Davidson, 2008: 2385). Uitermark & Duyvendak note how state-led gentrification projects unravel similarly in the Netherlands (2007).

Aims of state-led gentrification

The involvement of states in gentrification projects is generally explained by economic or market-related factors (Smith, 2002). Others point to its use as a “social mix” policy. Three reasons exist for why states would pursue gentrification for economic motives. First of all, the devolution of federal states has placed more pressure on states to pursue redevelop-ment and gentrification as a means of generating tax. Property developers are eager to speculate on expensive real estate. In times of narrow budgets, luring capital to town is a way of gaining revenue. Second, the expansion of gentrification beyond the inner city dis-tricts has posed individual capitalists for increased profit risks that are beyond their own control to manage. Third of all, the increased role of the state is part of a larger dismantling of the Keynesian welfare state and neoliberalization. The state is less concerned with social reproduction and more with market interests (Hackworth & Smith, 2001).

Uitermark & Duyvendak point out that in the Netherlands the economic explanation does not consistently apply, because the state invests in even the most disadvantaged

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neighborhoods, where not much apparent revenue is up for grabs. It is better explained as an attempt to pacify tensions and reduce concentrations of problematic people according to them. Gentrification is not an end on its own, but a means to an end. (Uitermark, Duyven-dak & Kleinhans, 2007: 126).

The transformation of a ‘problematic neighborhood’ is justified through the notion of ‘liveability’ of a place. This ‘liveability’ is related to the social economic make-up of a neighborhood. Poor neighborhoods are considered less ‘liveable’ (Van Gent, 2010). Gov-ernments hope that an upgrade in the built environment brings along a change in the neighborhood. By attracting middle-class residents and dispersing groups associated with social disorder, governments hope to create a “social mix” of better off and less-affluent residents. In practice, the social mix argument does not work out as well as it says it does. The poor often end up in other neighborhoods, dispersing the ‘problem’, or they do not de-rive any merit from having an affluent neighbor (Uitermark, 2007). Residents often do not conceive their neighborhood as ‘problematic’ as governing elites do. “In sum, there is a dis-crepancy between policy rhetoric and social reality” (Van Gent, 2013: 507).

Resistance

Resistance to gentrification is dependent on the nature of the gentrification process (Pearsall, 2013: 2294). Over the years, resistance has shifted in varied in size and shape just as gentrification has. Protests ranged from community-wide mobilizations to much smaller forms of resistance. In this paragraph I use the three-wave model of Hackworth & Smith to show how resistance has changed, concluding with the present. In their three-wave model they suggest that protest has effectively been quashed, with the use of a couple of examples from the United States and Europe I demonstrate that this does not fully correspond with reality.

Three waves

In the first wave, gentrification was a form of state-led urban redevelopment that fruitlessly aimed to counter inner-city decline. Opposition was even more rare than the process itself. The process had a limited extent. No one had the expectation that it would expand in scope to other neighborhoods, which explains the absence of resistance. (Hackworth & Smith,

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2001: 445). During the second wave, the process unfolded much more intense than before. The reason was an economic decline that had worsened the condition of city-centers and thus made the rent gap, the disparity between inner-city housing prices and peripheral are-as, attractively large. Governments engaged in public-private partnerships. (Hackworth & Smith, 2001: 446).

At this point large groups of people first felt threatened by the process. The largest resistance movements to gentrification originate from this era. In the Amsterdam of the seventies, investors as well as the municipality felt that the city was in dire need of rein-vestment. The 400-year old city-center appeared hopelessly dysfunctional to the modernist city planners that ruled from the city hall. Plans were made to restructure large parts of the city. The city inhabitants as well as the large squatter movement mobilized against these plans (Uitermark, 2009: 348). Another example exists in the form of the Tompkins Square Park riots in 1988. New York City’s municipal government sought to domesticate the park to further facilitate gentrification on the Lower East Side. An attempt to enforce a 01:00 curfew ended up in a battle “police on one side and a diverse mix of anti-gentrification protestors, punks, housing activists, park inhabitants, artists, Saturday night revelers and Lower East Side residents on the other”. The New York Times spoke of “CLASS STRUGGLE ON AVENUE B” in an article the following morning, a phrase that Neil Smith gratuitously adopts as the title of the first chapter of his 1996 work ‘The New Urban Frontier’.

By the time the third wave arrived, public-private relationships had grown even more intense. The generalization of gentrification corresponds with this phase. States happi-ly work alongside capital. Gentrification functions as a capital accumulation strategy. Hack-worth and Smith suggest that resistance has been successfully muted in this phase (Hack-worth & Smith, 2002: 839).

Neutralization of resistance

Hackworth & Smith outline three explanations. First, the policies states employ are excep-tionally harsh and make challenging gentrification very difficult. Second, opposition has been displaced. The success of second and third-wave gentrification robbed a city of its sup-ply of activists. In this sense, gentrification has been so successful, that there is hardly any-one left who opposes the process. Another reason that may apply, is that community

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activ-ists have often taken over social welfare functions from the state as the welfare state has been dismantled, as such, they cannot risk protesting nearly as much (Lees, Slater, Wyly, 2010). Third, a change in public discourse has had its impact. Gentrification is not a “bad word” anymore, people do not think of the process as bad as they did in the past. It has lost its critical edge (Slater, 2006).

Contemporary resistance to gentrification

The diminishment of resistance against gentrification does not mean that the process plays out more peacefully or that no one objects to it anymore, even though the lack of research on resistance to gentrification in the 21st century might lead to think the opposite. It is more likely that it has become harder to contest the process, as states got more involved. Never-theless, continuous attempts to resist emerge and this paragraph is a testimony to that.

Newman and Wyly explain why gentrification in New York City has not lead to dis-placement in all cases. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques, they conclude that “after two generations of intense gentrification, any low- and moderate-income renters who have managed to avoid displacement are likely to be those people who have found ways to adapt and survive in an increasingly competitive housing market” (2006: 28). Two types to adapt and survive exist. First, private strategies, these exist in the form of over-crowding and enduring high housing costs, but also owner-occupation. By owning you own premises or simply leasing it from a landlord that does not seek profit, gentrification can’t gain a hold. Removing oneself from the vagaries of the real estate market is probably a very effective but not too realistic for many renters who simply lack the pecuniary power (2006: 49). A second category of strategies consists public strategies. These are political and local state interventions such public housing and rent stabilization schemes. A supportive gov-ernment might help in the case of market-induced gentrification, yet when the govgov-ernment is the one undertaking gentrification, not help can be expected from stateside. On the other side, community organizations can ensure the availability of affordable housing. Activities consist of weekly meetings, negotiations, and try to pressure landlords. In Brooklyn the Lower Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue Committee launched a campaign to challenge landlords who displace residents through excessive rent increases (Newman and Wyly, 2006: 48).

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Newman and Wyly show that resistance does not necessarily have to take on the form of citywide class war. In the present it is more likely to take on everyday forms. A shortcoming of their framework is that it primary looks at market-induced gentrification. In the Dutch context, the state is more involved in driving people from their homes. Local state However, it must be noted that their framework may be of more limited use in a situation where the state is the principal actor driving people from their homes.

Two case studies on resistance to gentrification in New York City give more insight into the nature of resistance. Schmelzkopf (2002) looked at the efforts of people on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Decades-old community gardens were threatened to be destroyed to free up space for property developers. Residents contested the demolish-ment through lawsuits that attracted attention to the media and made use of argudemolish-ments environmental impacts. In the end, the new development was mostly stalled. Pearsall (2013) researched contestation over the gentrification of Gowanus Canal, a brownfield in Brooklyn. Residents challenged the process by overruling municipal governments requests for expedited development. They also decreased the desirability of the location to develop-ers through place stigmatization. The area now remains an area for further debate. Pearsall is uncertain on the nature of resistance and says it is an area for further research (ibid: 3310).

A theme common with both Schmelzkopf and Pearsall is assistance the residents found with the federal state. The federal state does not have the same interests as New York City. In the case of Schmelzkopf, residents proved that developers made misuse of fed-eral funds, a convincing argument on their side. In the case of Gowanus Canal, the addition of the canal to the US National Priorities List (NPL) of hazardous sites made the site less at-tractive. A decision that was supported by local residents and the state but opposed by the Mayor of New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and major developers.

On this side of the Atlantic resistance is often guaranteed in a way through legal and institu-tional frameworks that obligate housing associations, property developers and governmen-tal actors to take into account the interests of residents.

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develop-cerning the nature and origin of opposition he asserts that it was enforced by a movement of neighborhood resistance to perceived pressures of displacement and neighborhood change.

Resistance to gentrification in the Netherlands is guaranteed through the legal protection tenants have under Dutch law. Kleinhans (2003) looks at the direct experiences of residents who are forced to move as their houses are demolished. Dutch legislative regulations for tenants guarantee that households are entitled to a comparable dwelling, help and priority rights in the search for a new house. These measures are supposed to prevent harm to the housing situation of social renters. Still, he concludes that forced relocation has a large im-pact on residents’ lives, largely because of its obligatory nature (2003: 474).

Dutch law necessitates the participation of residents when property developers, housing associations and municipal governments make plans for an area. In a comparative study of Amsterdam and Istanbul, Bahar Sakızlıoğlu looks at how residents experience the impacts of state-led gentrification and displacement. She finds out that, although participa-tion in Amsterdam was invited, housing associaparticipa-tions and governments decided who could participate, when and what they discussed. This strongly limited the amount of resistance. Issues of contention were restricted to design details, no real policy issues. “The Dutch case, with a clear differentiation of residents and definition of rules, represents a situation in which the residents incorporate their roles and consent is constructed through a citizen par-ticipation that co-opts the most active residents” (2013: 257).

Carla Huisman shares a similar finding. After investigating official tenant participa-tion in urban restructuring in Amsterdam for over one year, she concludes that participaparticipa-tion is used as a means to gain legitimacy for restructuring. Choices are presented to tenants as facts, rather than as policy consideration. By negating the possibility of an alternative, ten-ants have no effective power in the process. Participation helps to legitimize displacement, rather than giving tenants an actual say (Huisman, 2013).

The article by Uitermark & Kleinhans mentioned earlier also shortly speaks of re-sistance. They note that “the policy of restructuring, selling social housing and social mixing has faced little resistance because demand for social housing was already in decline and most people also agreed that owner-occupied dwellings were beneficial for the city” (2007:

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132). This argument connects to a change public discourse, mentioned by Tom Slater, but fails to explain why some people do resist.

Fear or anger about potential displacement and corresponding loss of neighborhood are recurrent motives in the literature on resistance to gentrification. Displacement occurs when a household is forced to move from its residence by conditions affecting itself or its surroundings. Rents can go up and people are forced to move as they cannot afford to live in their neighborhood any longer. In other cases, rental units are conversed and made ready for ownerships or houses are demolished and replaced by more expensive ones. Even when there is legal protection against rent increases, government policies evict people in order to pave the way for gentrification (Shaw, 2006: 27).

In this final paragraph I sum up the expectations that stem from the literature on gentrifica-tion. State-led gentrification is generally explained by economic motives in the United States, Uitermark & Duyvendak note that in the Netherlands it is rather used as a means to create ‘social order’. These arguments do not have to exclude one another though; it could be possible that governmental actors and housing associations are after economic gains but seek to legitimize it with social motives, something that will be made clear later on in this thesis. Neil Smith notes that resistance takes on the form of class war (1996), Newman & Wyly assert that in the 21st century more everyday forms of resistance exist. Both examples focus on New York City, it has to become clear how this plays outside of this context. The case studies by Schmelzkopf and Pearsall make clear that federal governments and city gov-ernments do not necessarily share the same interests when it comes to gentrification. A Similarly they point out that residents are creative in finding means of opposition outside of the official channels. Gabriel Ahlfeldt points out that people do not resist because it is agreed they benefit from gentrification. In the Dutch literature on resistance to gentrifica-tion it is often pointed out that official participagentrifica-tion effectively legitimizes restructuring, no real choice for tenants exists. Not much attention has been paid to means of opposition that do not fall in the category of officially obligated tenant participation.

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3. Methodology

This thesis is based on a qualitative case study design. I am interested in answering the question “How gentrification causes resistance”. This is a single-case study, which is defined as an “empirical inquiry that investigates a rea life phenomenon within its real life context”. This method was chosen because it allows for a close investigation of how contestation oc-curs.

Case

The empirical objective of this bachelor thesis is to investigate how gentrification causes resistance. In order to answer this question I picked a case where gentrification has caused resistance, I’ve selected on the basis of the dependent variable. This is not problematic be-cause I am more interested in the process of state-led gentrification and resistance than in testing a hypothesis.

Rotterdam is not an unpopular case urban research. Within the Netherlands, the city has a reputation of inconsiderate top-down city-planning and is infamous for being on top of all kinds of negative ratings: crime, poverty, unemployment and so on. For this reason much researchers have probably investigated topics such as the loss of social cohesion (Uitermark, 2007), exclusionary politics in the neoliberal city (Van Eijk, 2010), the rise of right-wing populism (Koopmans, 2009) or ethnic polarization (Burgers, 1996). Rotterdam is usually picked as a case when researchers want to prove what is wrong with contemporary urban policy. While I do not want to question the fair of share of problems in the city, I think it is challenging to investigate resistance to gentrification in a city that is known for its “revanch-ism that most closely rivals that of the US” (Uitermark & Duyvendak, 2008: 1488). In this respect it is an extreme case (Gerring & Barresi, 2003). If we expect one city in the Nether-lands to be effective at blunting participation, it would be Rotterdam. It is interesting to re-search how people manage to effectively fight gentrification in a municipality that is known for its harsh inconsiderate top-down planning.

Within the city I picked two neighborhoods where the heaviest contestation oc-curred: Vreewijk & Crooswijk. Initially I had a longer list of neighborhoods that all are or have been subject to restructuring policy. But after the first interview I concluded that these would be most suitable. Contestation in these neighborhoods has also been well

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document-ed by local mdocument-edia. Ideally I would have compardocument-ed one of these neighborhoods to a neigh-borhood in the Global South, to respond to Loretta Lees call for comparative urbanism and “decentering […] gentrification from the Global North” (Lees, 2012). This would also serve the purpose of exploring how the generalization of gentrification plays out in cities outside of the Western sphere, an important point in Smith’s 2002 article as well. Unfortunately I had to restrict myself to a city close to home due to time restrictions and practical consider-ations. Vreewijk and Crooswijk serve as some sort of comparison, although not completely. They are similar in many respects but through at least some degree of comparison I hope to have some differentiation in context in order to successfully generate some similarities. Rot-terdam is in the Netherlands, which is known for its tenant protection, social housing and rent control practices. This institutional framework has to be taken into account when gen-eralizing to broader cases.

Collecting data

I used three different methods of collecting data for this thesis: in-depth interviews, news-paper articles and policy documents. In this paragraph I shortly outline my rationale for each of these methods.

In-depth interviews

I planned a total of four in-depth interviews. One with Hamit Karakus, member of the PvdA (social-democrats) and alderman of housing and spatial planning in the period 2006-2014. Three interviews with representatives of neighborhood organizations of Vreewijk, Crooswijk and Bergsepolder. Originally I intended to include more cases but soon I decided I could bet-ter focus on Vreewijk & Crooswijk and drop Bergsepolder, where the resistance was much smaller in scale.

The interviews were semi-structured. Prior to each interview I made a list of the themes that I wanted to cover in the interview. I experienced that during the course of the interviews, often topics and issues emerged that I had not covered beforehand but still had to deal with. My first interview with the representative of a neighborhood organization in Crooswijk proved to be very useful to prepare for the others as it made me familiar with the setting and what unexpected topics would arose. The interviews lasted on average between

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thirty and ninety minutes. Interviewees were eager to talk about their backgrounds and ex-periences. The representatives of the neighborhood organizations are often or had been under sufficient pressure from housing associations. To minimize any harm to them, I have decided to anonymize their identities.

A non-random sampling strategy was chosen for practical and theoretical reasons. The limited time frame in which I wrote my bachelor thesis limited the amount of interviews I could conduct. As I had limited time to conduct interviews I decided to interview key peo-ple in the neighborhoods to get as much information and understanding on the nature of resistance, interests at stake, motives and detailed background information. In general, al-most all of my interviewees reacted positively to my request for an interview.

On beforehand I expected two problems to arise. First, if states are successful at suppressing resistance, how do you find people who resist? This did not prove to be much of a problem as there was much more resistance in Rotterdam than the literature initially led me to believe. Second, representatives of neighborhood associations, as with any organ-ization, tend to pretend that they speak on behalf of the entire neighborhood to strengthen their argument. I tried to overcome this problem by using other forms of data and take this point into consideration in my analysis.

Policy documents

Various project plans, documents and legislations have also been used in this thesis. I ha-ven’t made a systematic review of these, most of my time was spent on the other two forms of data. A form of snowball sampling was used for these. While conducting research, inter-viewees or literature would often refer to documents on urban policy and influential white papers. I made a list of these and tried to develop these into a coherent and concise frame-work in the end. Policy documents tend to speak in very euphemistic terms of resistance. This reflects the stance of the author, usually a governmental actor or housing association. It is often not in their interest to fully reflect on negative sentiments of residents. I tried to juxtapose this with experiences of residents to get a complete picture.

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Media

I undertook a systematic review of all articles in the online database of the Algemeen Dagblad. This is a large national newspaper and the only newspaper with a large section on news from Rotterdam. I expected that this increased the chance that they would pay atten-tion to local issues. Interviewees would also sometimes give me excerpts from neighbor-hoods newspapers. The downside of using media sources is that they sometimes tend to focus on incidents. For example, at one point the windows of the director of the housing association that was responsible for the restructuring of Vreewijk were smashed. The perpe-trator is unknown yet and the issue continued to dominate the newspaper for weeks. The housing association used it to demonstrate that the tenants of Vreewijk were unreasonable.

Triangulation

The use of a mix of data collection techniques helped to improve the degree of validity of my overall empiric evidence. By collecting information from multiple sources on the same phenomenon, I hoped to improve the internal validity of this bachelor thesis (Olsen, 2004: 104).

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4. Urban policy in the Netherlands

Urban policy has a long history in the Netherlands. Using important government white pa-pers and memoranda I set out the institutional and political context for restructuring policy in the Netherlands. I pave the way for the fifth chapter in which I explore in-depth how re-structuring policy has sparked resistance in Vreewijk & Crooswijk.

The administrative structure in the Netherlands consists out of three levels. The cen-tral state (het Rijk), provinces and municipalities (gemeenten). Municipalities are ruled by an elected municipal council (gemeenteraad) and a mayor appointed by the state. Rotterdam is further divided into sub-municipalites (deelgemeenten). As of 2014, these have been con-verted into municipal commissions (bestuurscommissies). Spatial planning is a sub-municipal responsibility, but Rotterdam at the municipal-level makes agreements with the state about restructuring. Intervention in the housing market in the Netherlands started with the Woningwet of 1901, a law that aimed to improve living conditions of the Dutch population. Further amendments to urban policy followed in the period after the Second World War. A large housing shortage existed at that time, the government addressed this through the creation of social housing. By 1970, 31 percent the housing stock consisted of social housing, most of them owned by housing associations. A centrally regulated housing system, rent control and housing subsidies made sure the housing market was decommodified (Boel-houwer, Priemus, 1990). Housing was considered a merit good, affordable housing was a right (Uitermark, 2001).

Privatization

A policy missive issued by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (MVROM) issued a policy missive (Housing in the 1990s) heralded the end of this centrally regulated system. The state handed over responsibilities to municipalities and housing asso-ciations. The role of the private sector increased. Housing associations became private ac-tors after the bruteringsactie of 1995. Financial support from the state to the housing asso-ciations was abolished; in return housing assoasso-ciations received greater independence.

The stage for restructuring policy was set by two major policies: the Big Cities Policy (Grotestedenbeleid) and the White Paper on Urban Renewal. The goal of the Big Cities Policy was to address a series of socio-economic problems in the four big cities of the Netherlands:

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Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht & Rotterdam. The goal of the policy was strengthen the economic position of cities and reinforce their position in the housing market (MVROM 1997)(Kleinhans, 2003: 475).

The white paper on Urban Renewal introduced the policy physical neighborhood restructuring to improve the profile and condition of neighborhoods. The idea was that a change in the built environment has an impact on the people. The large amount of social housing weakens the position of these neighborhoods. Restructuring is necessary to prevent decline. Restructuring “means that the quality of the living environment is enhanced and, most importantly, that the share of owner-occupied housing is increased” (Uitermark, 2003: 532). Restructuring creates differentiation in the housing stock. It is hoped that the availabil-ity of owner-occupied housing would encourage more affluent households to stay in the neighborhood and attract other affluent people. At this point, the central state started to encourage municipal governments and housing associations to construct owner-occupied housing and demolish social housing in order to create neighborhoods with a balanced so-cial composition (MVROM, 2000) (Uitermark, 2007: 129).

In policy thinking a change had taken place; whereas in the past social housing was considered a solution, it was now seen as a social problem in itself. The concentration of social problems in neighborhoods was considered a threat to social order. The term “livea-bility” refers to a situation in which daily life is not disrupted by antisocial or criminal behav-iours of neighborhood residents. "Participants in the urban policy discourse now associate owner-occupation with freedom and active citizenship, and associate social housing with dependency” (Uitermark, 2007: 129).

Rotterdam had the dubious honor of being home to most 'problematic' neighbor-hoods out of all cities in the Netherlands. A total of eight neighborneighbor-hoods were labeled as problematic: Oude Westen, Oude Noorden, Crooswijk, Bergpolder, Overschie, Oud Zuid, Vreewijk & the Zuidelijke Tuinsteden (Krachtwijken). Funding to the forty designated places would come from housing corporations, municipal treasure money and money from the central state.

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Stadsvisie 2030

Urban vision Rotterdam 2030 (Stadsvisie 2030) is a white paper issued by the municipal government of Rotterdam in 2007. It sets out a general development strategy and a 'vision' of what the city looks like in 2030. It emphasizes the importance of a "highly-educated workforce" and that it is essential that the city attracts and keeps the middle-class house-holds. The role of the government is to give an "impetus to the economy" (2007: 52). It also sets out restructuring for 19 neighborhoods, which comes down to the demolishment to 13.000 houses and the construction of 14.000 newly-built, largely owner-ship. Stadsvisie 2030 does not shy away from mentioning gentrification as a key policy instrument. The pa-per even contains various maps in which 'designated gentrification areas' are marked out, roughly half of Rotterdam (2007: 139). The creation of housing catering to middle-class groups is a central policy aim of the Rotterdam municipal government, in line with the goals set out in the nineties by the central state. This is achieved through the transformation of existing housing stock, which involves a change in tenure, but also an upgrade of the quality of the house in terms of size. In practice, the old stocks of social housing are demolished and replaced with newly built houses.

The latest municipal government, a three-party coalition, comprised of D66 [liberal-democratic’], Leefbaar Rotterdam and CDA [Christian-democrats], blatantly carries on Rot-terdam's gentrifying ambitions. In their coalition agreement they state the following: “We do our utmost best to make Rotterdam a strong city. […] A city where more people that carry the heaviest burdens live, people who want to invest in the city. At the moment there’s too little space for those people. Therefore we will ensure there will be more suitable housing for middle- and high-incomes.” (Coalition Agreement 2014-2018).

The coalition wants to further decrease the total stock of social housing and to relo-cate 'antisocial' people to asowoningen (anti-social housing) at the edge of the city. One measure that captured the attention of the public in particular is the creation of a bak-fietswijk (freight bicycle neighborhood). The freight bicycle is a means of transportation that in the Netherlands is closely associated with the gentrifying class; transportation for yuppies (Zukin, 2012: 283). How policy turns out in practice has to be seen. It is clear though that the tendency that started in the nineties won't go away soon. Instead, it has only intensified.

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5. Resistance in Rotterdam

In this chapter I look at how restructuring policy plays out in Nieuw Crooswijk & Vreewijk. I use a mix of policy documents, newspapers and interviews I conducted with community representatives and the municipality. Before I track the process, I first give a short back-ground on both neighborhoods. I then scrutinize the development of the restructuring plans, look when and how residents mobilized and their motivations. First I look at Nieuw Crooswijk before I turn to Vreewijk.

Nieuw Crooswijk

Located to the north of Rotterdam’s city-centre, Nieuw Crooswijk is a relatively small neigh-borhood of 6.000 houses, flanked by two century-old cemeteries. It is part of the larger bor-ough of Crooswijk, which is on its own turn part of the municipal commission of Kralingen-Crooswijk. In 2009, the neighborhood counts 2.400 residents. One in five residents received a social welfare payment.

Plans for development started in 1997 when Woningbedrijf Rotterdam (WBR), the housing association that owns nearly 90% of the building stock in Nieuw-Crooswijk, pre-sented a pilot plan for an integral intervention in the make-up of the neighborhood. Wijkor-gaan Crooswijk, one of the neighborhood committees in the area, responded to give their views on the plans. Out of this response a panel was born: Bewonersvisie Nieuw Crooswijk. The panel consisted of three people from the neighborhood committee and one WBR-representative. A few residents participated in the deliberation process from the start. The panel presented its findings in De Crooswijkse Mix in 1999. The report proposed that re-structuring should consist of both newly-built private housing as well as renovation of exist-ing social housexist-ing. The panel believed restructurexist-ing was necessary to some degree in order to solve the problems in the neighborhood. It insisted that after restructuring the amount of affordable housing it should correspond with the amount of low-income households that wanted to stay in the neighborhood, thusly guaranteeing relocation (1999: 30). In 2002 a sub-municipal white paper (Structuurvisie Nieuw Crooswijk) set out the long-term plans for Nieuw Crooswijk. One third of 2100 was to be demolished. The sub-municipality noted that people were already reluctant and worried about their futures, especially with respect to relocation.

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The first comprehensive development plan, Masterplan Nieuw Crooswijk, was pre-sented in 2004. Residents' concerns were not taken into consideration. There would be no relocation guarantee and only 30% of the new housing stock would be 'affordable housing'. 85% of the total housing stock was to be demolished and replaced with newly built private property. Within the heart of the neighborhood only middle up to highly prized housing was to be built. A public-private partnership was founded, the Ontwikkelings Combinatie Nieuw Crooswijk (OCNC). The OCNC is a coalition of a large builder (ERA bouw), a developer (Prop-er Stok) and a housing corporation (WoningBedrijf Rott(Prop-erdam). The OCNC would execute the Masterplan.

Residents were informed about their future through a couple of meetings organized by the municipality, as well as leaflets. “February 2004 I received a leaflet on my doormat. Well, it was written in such unclear bureaucratic terms that I had to read it through twice before I understood that they wanted to bulldoze the entire neighborhood", declared Jan Peters, a representative of FBNC that had been involved from the beginning. Residents felt the plan wasn’t theirs and resistance first mobilized. Many people in the neighborhood had lived there for years and did not want to leave. In May 2004, seven existing neighborhood committees joined forces and established a new neighborhood cooperative: the Federatie Bewonerscomités Nieuw Crooswijk (FBNC).

The municipality understood that something had gone awry. Lucas Bolsius, alderman of social affairs & neighborhoods in 2005, remarked that “at some point something hap-pened that created the impression with the residents that this is not their plan anymore […] I cannot reverse history though” (Edwards & Schaap, 2005: 25).

People mobilized because they did not want to lose their home and neighborhood. Mr. Janssen experiences a high degree of social ties in the neighborhood “In Crooswijk peo-ple know each other. It is a small village within a big city and it goes back for generations […] what struck me the most was the story of someone who had just moved here because he wanted his children to grow up in Crooswijk”.

The OCNC used various arguments to justify demolishment and downplay resistance. They would refer to the 1999 participation process to point out residents already had had their say. Residents did not feel the same. In retrospect, Mr. Janssen was very cynical con-cerning the ‘participation procedure’: “First of all there is a procedure that takes years.

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Peo-and in the end they decide to demolish the entire neighborhood. You lose your house, the neighborhood you cherish”.

A second argument was that Nieuw Crooswijk in its entirety was in a very bad state and that it had to be demolished. Renovation simply was not an option. This argument also contrasted with the reality experienced by residents, who felt that most housing was in a good state. “If the houses really had been damp, draughty and noisy I would have left my-self”. Lastly, the municipality and the OCNC pointed out that Nieuw Crooswijk was a bad neighborhood and needed intervention, another point that did not match with the reality experiences by residents: "People who live here know better”.

The strategies employed by residents varied in nature. Some forms of resistance had a light-hearted tone, residents symbolically declared Nieuw Crooswijk's independence. They marched upon the city hall with a coffin that read ‘Bury the Masterplan’. People ridiculed alderman Marco Pastors with window-posters referring to the German occupation, 'Creutzweik', - a form of humor not everyone in the city hall appreciated - or drew inspira-tion from a different time of German history by declaring their solidarity to the cause with posters that read ‘Ich bin ein Crooswijker’. According to Mr. Peters, managing to draw the media's attention was key.

At a certain point the problem transcended this part of town. It became a Rotter-dam-wide issue and a point of contention in the 2006 municipal elections. Support was found with architects, city planners, sociologists and historians from outside of the Nether-lands who acknowledged that the residents had the right arguments on their side and that the Masterplan was lacking in some respects, especially when it came to planning, cultural-historical and environmental concerns. With the help of outside parties the residents devel-oped an alternative to the Masterplan.

More absolute aid came from the Raad van State, the highest judicial organ in the Netherlands for administrative affairs. In 2006 they annulled the development plan for Crooswijk, which was substandard in terms of environmental and cultural-historical con-cerns. Unfortunately, destruction permits for one part of the neighborhood had already been issued by then and could not be reversed.

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post-year due to “different factors, including the absence of a valid development plan and the economic insecurity caused by the credit crisis”. Mr. Janssen sees it differently though: “Of course they blame it on the market. In reality, the entire city was disgusted by it. It is now seen as an example for city planners on how it should not be done.”

Large feelings of antagonism directed at the housing associations remain. Ironically, enough once created to make sure people had a home, they now had become an enemy. “Something goes awry at the housing coops, they’re too big, too bureaucratic, too top-down and have too little 'feeling' with the neighborhood." says Mr. Janssen. The whole process had severely damaged the residents' faith: “The lies of the housing cooperation has deeply affected my trust in democracy. They lied to us.” People felt they had not been involved in a decent manner: “Their attitude was always arrogant and top-down. 'We’ll talk to you but only to tell you what we intend on doing.' Of course meetings are held, but only within their plans”.

Socio-economic transformation was not the point of contention per se. Residents did not object to new residents, emphasized by Mr. Janssen. Rather, they protested against the destruction of their community, a threat that had come out of the blue. In general the resi-dents just wished that the municipality would look after the neighborhood without forcing people to leave their homes. Mr. Janssen was not opposed to gentrification on its own: “I’d say, if they look after Nieuw Crooswijk, you’ll end up with the Jordaan [prime example of gentrification in Amsterdam] of Rotterdam." Class war seems far off. With respect to other neighborhoods he believed that they would have a harder time if they do not share the de-gree of social cohesion there is in Nieuw Crooswijk.

Vreewijk

South of the Maas, the river that divides Rotterdam into two, located in the sub-municipality of Feijenoord, lies Vreewijk, a neighbourhood built in the first two decades of the 19th_{century. It was one of the first ‘garden cities’ (tuinsteden) in the Netherlands, a} school of thought in city planning. Impetus to the plan was provided by the N.V. Eerste Rot-terdamsche Tuindorp, a group of Rotterdam elites that cared for the poor housing situation of many workers. The goal was to provide the “worse-off” the opportunity to live “outside, healthy, comfortable and not too expensive” (Pollmann, 1997: 109). The neighborhood is

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characterized by rows of terraced houses, divided by green space and small canals. 91% of the housing stock is rental and owned by the housing association ComWonen. Tracks of public participation had been going on since 1999.

In 2006 the residents first learned about the plans for their neighborhood. According to Gerda de Jong, the neighborhood representative I spoke to, this became known when the Bewonersorganisatie Vreewijk (BOV, neighbourhood committee Vreewijk), leaked the news that there were short-term plans for demolishment. "They wanted to demolish 86 houses in Maarland, Bree & Langegeer and replace them with five story apartments for seniors. Which is remarkable on its own as it is the most polluted street in Rotterdam and you’re telling senior citizens to live there. Anyway, after the leak, people mobilized”. The plan caused quite a stir: “For a long time we had heard that there were no plans and then suddenly we heard they wanted to get started in October of 2006!”

In practice, it took until 2007 when a Wijkvisie (Neighborhood vision) for Vreewijk was presented in which the demolishment plans were set out. A total of 1300 houses were to be demolished, starting with 86 houses that year. Arianne Hoogendoorn, a spokesman of ComWonen justified the plans in the local newspaper. "Sure, the neighborhood is easy on the eye but technically it's a mess. Then there are two options: renovation or demolishment. Technical research had pointed out that the first option is not feasible. Therefore we want to go for demolishment as soon as possible (Kei-centrum 2007).

Just as in Nieuw Crooswijk, residents of Vreewijk felt they had not been involved in any participation process at all. ComWonen pretended the opposite by referring to the par-ticipation procedures in 1999. Margriet Drijver, director of ComWonen “We've talked to everyone, including BOV and the action committee. When people say that we do not listen to them, they actually mean that ComWonen does something different than they want." Again there was a discrepancy by what the residents experienced and what ComWonen saw.

Residents mobilized in a "fairly large" action committee when the BOV organized a meeting in 2007. "That group of people was fairly verbal and rough at first. But what do you expect? People were appalled! Suddenly you hear that your house will be destroyed", Ms. de Jong stated. The arguments the housing association used for restructuring were met with

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suspi-own turn contacted external technical experts who said the opposite. ComWonen held a survey that said a majority of people actually wanted to leave, residents felt different.

The housing association on its own turn tried to intimidate resistance by visiting households and telling them they would get a better house than other residents if they would accept a relocation straightaway. At one point, the windows of a director of ComWo-nen were smashed. This incident was then used by the housing association to demonstrate the residents were not reasonable. In fact, the perpetrator was unknown. Small incidents were consistently used to portray the people who resisted as unreasonable people. "At one point a sub municipal alderman spoke of 'war in Vreewijk'. Astonished I told him 'if you call this war, I would like to know what real war is'"

Vreewijk used similar strategies as Nieuw Crooswijk. By all kinds of actions, ranging from light-hearted ones in tone to more serious such as occupying the office of ComWonen, they tried to receive attention from political parties and media. First the local Socialist Party put it on agenda, later Vreewijk even made it to the agenda of the national parliament. Ex-perts got involved from various historical and architectural organizations. It became appar-ent that in the past a request had been made to put Vreewijk on the list of monumappar-ents, which had not been processed yet. The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands was surprised this had not been done yet. In 2012 Vreewijk finally received a protected status.

Ms. de Jong attributes a large part of Vreewijk's success to the fortune of being of cultural and historical value. In the end it was not a very large group of people that resisted, in contrast to Crooswijk. The main point always was to show others why Vreewijk is a unique part of Rotterdam.

Municipal reflections

The interview I held with Hamit Karakus, alderman of housing, neighborhoods and spatial planning from 2006-2014, shed some different perspectives on restructuring policy and re-sistance in Vreewijk & Crooswijk. He noted that managing to get the residents accept the plans was vital to restructuring policy. "In my experience, intense emotions fade when peo-ple have their say prior to the restructuring project." Unclear is whether he means that resi-dents have their say or that protest is an obstacle. Mr. Karakus stressed that the resistance in Vreewijk & Crooswijk paint an incomplete picture: "Often you notice that only a part of

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the population opposes the plan. It's always a small minority of people that opposes restruc-turing". There are some differences between the two neighborhoods he notes: "In Vreewijk people were involved but not in the correct way. It is up to individual people and trust. The director of ComWonen had a wrong relationship with the residents. About Crooswijk, peo-ple just experience it differently. You just can't keep everyone satisfied." Karakus also stressed the difficulty of having tenants participate: "Often you organize a tenant participa-tion meeting and no one shows up, or it's always the same people they do. People are usual-ly onusual-ly preoccupied with what will happen tomorrow". Restructuring policy affects larger part of Rotterdam, and the alderman is not the only one to notice that it often unfolds pret-ty uncontested "in most old neighborhoods you can demolish entire blocks and no one will complain. Not much people feel tied to their neighborhood".

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6. Conclusion

This thesis has shown how resistance to state-led gentrification took place in Rotterdam. Through a mix of data I have shed some light on how gentrification is actively pursued in the form of restructuring policy. Residents quickly mobilized realized that ‘restructuring’ implied the demolishment of their houses. Sugarcoating gentrification through language did not work effectively in this case. Protest was motivated by the fear of losing the cherished community in which residents lived. Official tracks of public participation disappointed peo-ple in both cases, and did not present residents with any real choice, a finding in line with Huisman’s expectations. In both Vreewijk & Crooswijk a strong sense of community existed prior to the restructuring plans, both refer to themselves as a 'village within a city', this pos-sible contributed to the degree of resistance. People resorted to political strategies, often playing housing association and municipal governments against other actors at more central levels, similar to what happened in Pearsall's Gowanus. Another similarity the unique char-acter of the respective neighborhoods, which contesters tried to prove with assistance of external experts, formed a central private strategy in resistance. In Vreewijk, a monumental designation gave residents a sense of respect. In both areas an ironic denial of plans and arguments and light-hearted forms of protest featured prominently. At other times, a more serious political overtone dominated. At all times, Neil Smith's class war seemed a distant vision. Resistance was not necessarily directed at middle-class. Above all people did not want to lose their home, antagonism was accordingly directed at the ones held responsible for that: housing associations.

The main contribution to the existing research on gentrification has been the demonstration of individual agency. Structural accounts of gentrification have often ne-glected the possibility of individual action. This study has shown that residents of affected neighborhoods can draw from a wide range of strategies in order to resist gentrification. This thesis has also contributed by opening up a few new theoretical pathways for future research. In order to really develop an account of why people resist to gentrification, I think it would be wise to compare cases on the outcome variable as well. A more cross-sectional case-study approach could really shed light on why some neighborhoods resist and others don't. The dry laconic manner in which Hamit Karakus stated that in Rotterdam entire neighborhoods are demolished without any complaints struck me the most. Is this a

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reflec-tion of the evicreflec-tion of critical perspectives or of social reality? This thesis suggests the latter but future research should look at these neighborhoods to see why no one objects, a worri-some puzzle. A second research direction could look at the nature of resistance over time. In order to successfully determine causality, it is important to have a change in time. In this bachelor thesis I have only looked in at a few developments in retrospect. The 2014 coali-tion agreement could form the starting point of a natural experiment on gentrificacoali-tion- gentrification-induced resistance. By tracking and comparing, more can be learned on the conflicts and problems that arise in the various ‘designated gentrification’ areas over time,

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State-led gentrification and staying put : resistance in Nieuw-Crooswijk en Vreewijk