Die Neue Zeit
14th March 2010, 01:52
"The Right to the City"
“One step towards unification of these struggles is to focus on the right to the city as both a working slogan and a political ideal, precisely because it focuses on who it is that commands the inner connection that has prevailed from time immemorial between urbanization and surplus production and use. The democratization of the right to the city and the construction of a broad social movement to enforce its will is imperative, if the dispossessed are to take back control of the city from which they have for so long been excluded and if new modes of controlling capital surpluses as they work through urbanization processes are to be instituted.” (David Harvey)
In response to gentrification and displacement of low-income people from their traditional urban neighbourhoods, Right to the City was formed in 2007 and has sought to make an impact in questions of housing, urban land, community development, civic engagement, and criminal justice, among others. The Marxist geographer David Harvey devotes his political activity to this organization.
In March 2010, a report was released by the United Nations expressing concerns over forced evictions leading up to major sporting events, which are more publicized than gentrification and displacement in places like New York City:
“I am particularly concerned about the practice of forced evictions, criminalization of homeless persons and informal activities, and the dismantling of informal settlements in the context of mega-events,” said Raquel Rolnik, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.
[…]
Displacement can also arise from steps taken by local authorities to swiftly remove unsightly slums from areas visible to visitors, it noted, citing how 15 per cent of the population of Seoul, Republic of Korea, was evicted and 48,000 buildings torn down to prepare for the 1988 Olympic Games.
Redevelopment can also sharply reduce the availability of social and low-cost housing, including State-subsidized residences, the publication pointed out. In Atlanta, United States, 1,200 social housing units for the poor were destroyed in the run-up to the 1996 Olympics, while it is possible that plans to build hundreds of thousands of new low-cost homes could be affected by shifting budget demands ahead of this summer’s FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.
[…]
The report called on both bodies to consider the consequences of mega-events on the enjoyment of human rights. The selection of host cities should be open to scrutiny by civil society, and housing provisions should be incorporated into any hosting agreements – which must be in line with international and national standards – entered into.
Authorities must protect people from forced evictions, discrimination and harassment, as well as provide redress for victims, it added.
Since bourgeois authorities have problems with the aforementioned obligations, it is up to potential victims themselves to organize. However, at the present time typical resident associations happen to be homeowner associations, usually far removed from the urban gentrification and displacement problem. The expansion of resident association guarantees (as opposed to the ethical concept of right) beyond such homeowner privilege and towards the formation of separate tenant associations would go a long way towards combating gentrification and displacement, and in the intermediate run the very rationale for absentee landlordism. In politically revolutionary periods, periods that combine mass support to highly organized revolutionary movements hostile towards their own rulers with instability in the rulers’ own institutions – tenant associations have been capable of extending the participatory-democratic premise of parallelism. To quote Mike Macnair:
Now, actually, [revolutionary Russia] also had factory committees, elected factory committees, and God knows what else, elected block – tenants had the elected block committee for their housing block or street committee, or something like that. Masses of these organizational forms running in parallel…
This alone, however, is not enough to deal with residential gentrification. Moreover, even if residential landlords were under economic pressure to develop vacant and underutilized land (by means of land value taxation as discussed earlier in this chapter, and by other means), as opposed to legal pressure from grassroots occupations of vacant land and their subsequent development by non-profit community development organizations, there is still the problem of speculation on fully developed residential real estate. Sit-in protests from the 1960s to the present have occurred because of such speculation. Consider the case of financially stable renters being evicted simply because of landlord defaults, as reported by Bridget Huber of the Christian Science Monitor:
Nationwide, as many as 40 percent of families facing foreclosure-related evictions are renters [...] Congress and 13 states are considering laws to protect responsible renters and prevent communities from the blight of abandoned buildings that are stripped even of their copper fittings by scavengers, driving down property values.
[...]
The problem is particularly acute in the Northeast, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. By their estimates more than 50 percent of foreclosure-related evictions in some Northeastern cities involve renters.
[...]
In New Haven, Conn., property values have declined by 50 to 90 percent in the neighborhoods hardest hit by foreclosure, says Amy Marx, a staff attorney with New Haven Legal Assistance, which works with many tenants of bank-owned buildings. She suggests that the best way to stop the downward spiral of property values is to let renters stay in their homes.
But lenders see vacating the buildings as a necessary step in getting the properties fixed up and resold, says Rick Simon, a spokesman for Bank of America. “We believe it’s better for the community to have the property prepared for resale as soon as possible,” he says. “It’s generally more effective to market a property that is vacant than one occupied by a tenant.”
There have been rare cases whereby, as long as the tenant pays rent and does not neglect the property, the law provides for perpetual possession. The limitation of all residential writs of possession and eviction for the benefit of private parties to cases of tenant neglect would go a long way towards curbing residential gentrification and speculation, and when combined with the existence of tenant associations would facilitate (perhaps greater) property management by the tenants themselves in the intermediate run. In cases of non-renewals for purposes other than gentrification or speculation, most notably the replacement of a decaying apartment with a newer one of similar quality, there would still be no need for residential writs of possession and eviction for the benefit of private parties, so long as there exist tenant associations for landlords to engage in direct negotiations with.
It may be the case that the two demands above can be enacted exclusively by local governments. If so, the slogan “Right to the City” may even be suspected of promoting local politics over higher-level politics, the latter of which class struggle is based upon. What role, then, can governments at higher levels play? Part of what caused the subprime crisis in the US is the income tax deductibility of certain items pertaining to mortgages, such as mortgage interest and mortgage insurance premiums. This was aggravated further by former President George W. Bush when he promoted policies aimed at achieving an “ownership society” (private health care, education, and pensions, plus the proliferation of home ownership). In other countries, an “ownership society” has not been promoted as aggressively, if at all. As noted by Anushka Asthana of The Observer, the Institute of Public Policy Research in the UK has conducted research leading to a conclusion directly opposite an “ownership society”:
The study, by the Institute for Public Policy Research, exposes the day-to-day reality for low-income families across the UK.
By following 58 of them from boom to bust, through regular, in-depth interviews, and detailed diaries of what they spent and when, it reveals how small events could have a profound impact. Saddled with credit cards, mortgages (many self-certified) and high-interest loans, many of the families struggled to cope with things such as a washing machine breaking down, a leaking water pipe, a car needing its MOT, or children wanting warmer clothes in winter.
As a result of its research, the IPPR is calling for low-income families to be given life-long savings accounts, more affordable credit initiatives, a website on which to compare lenders and free and impartial financial advice. It also argues that policies to broaden the appeal of renting should be investigated. "Our reliance on debt – far from creating opportunity – has created vulnerability during this recession," the study concludes.
While income tax deductibility for mortgage interest and mortgage insurance premiums do not exist in other countries’ income tax laws, neither does income tax deductibility for residential rent payments, to complement traditional rental subsidies. The establishment of such tax deductibility (while scrapping the aforementioned US tax deductions), and the general establishment of comprehensive tax and other financial preferences for renting over home ownership, enables the basic principles regarding class struggle to be “kept consciously in view” through emphasizing higher-level politics.
As demonstrated by the UN report, “the right to the city,” perhaps envisaged originally as being the basis for a series of only local struggles, has transcended even national boundaries.
REFERENCES
The Right to the City by David Harvey [http://davidharvey.org/media/righttothecity.pdf]
About Right to the City by Right to the City (RTTC) [http://www.righttothecity.org/]
Olympics and World Cup soccer must take up cause of right to housing – UN expert by UN News Service [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34028]
Revolutionary Strategy (video) by Mike Macnair [http://vimeo.com/6249441]
Even renters who are paid up are getting kicked out by Bridget Huber, Christian Science Monitor [http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2009/0324/even-renters-who-are-paid-up-are-getting-kicked-out]
Cheap credit has pulled the UK's poorest families into a spiral of debt by Anushka Asthana, Observer [http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/07/cheap-credit-poorest-spiral-debt]
“One step towards unification of these struggles is to focus on the right to the city as both a working slogan and a political ideal, precisely because it focuses on who it is that commands the inner connection that has prevailed from time immemorial between urbanization and surplus production and use. The democratization of the right to the city and the construction of a broad social movement to enforce its will is imperative, if the dispossessed are to take back control of the city from which they have for so long been excluded and if new modes of controlling capital surpluses as they work through urbanization processes are to be instituted.” (David Harvey)
In response to gentrification and displacement of low-income people from their traditional urban neighbourhoods, Right to the City was formed in 2007 and has sought to make an impact in questions of housing, urban land, community development, civic engagement, and criminal justice, among others. The Marxist geographer David Harvey devotes his political activity to this organization.
In March 2010, a report was released by the United Nations expressing concerns over forced evictions leading up to major sporting events, which are more publicized than gentrification and displacement in places like New York City:
“I am particularly concerned about the practice of forced evictions, criminalization of homeless persons and informal activities, and the dismantling of informal settlements in the context of mega-events,” said Raquel Rolnik, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.
[…]
Displacement can also arise from steps taken by local authorities to swiftly remove unsightly slums from areas visible to visitors, it noted, citing how 15 per cent of the population of Seoul, Republic of Korea, was evicted and 48,000 buildings torn down to prepare for the 1988 Olympic Games.
Redevelopment can also sharply reduce the availability of social and low-cost housing, including State-subsidized residences, the publication pointed out. In Atlanta, United States, 1,200 social housing units for the poor were destroyed in the run-up to the 1996 Olympics, while it is possible that plans to build hundreds of thousands of new low-cost homes could be affected by shifting budget demands ahead of this summer’s FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.
[…]
The report called on both bodies to consider the consequences of mega-events on the enjoyment of human rights. The selection of host cities should be open to scrutiny by civil society, and housing provisions should be incorporated into any hosting agreements – which must be in line with international and national standards – entered into.
Authorities must protect people from forced evictions, discrimination and harassment, as well as provide redress for victims, it added.
Since bourgeois authorities have problems with the aforementioned obligations, it is up to potential victims themselves to organize. However, at the present time typical resident associations happen to be homeowner associations, usually far removed from the urban gentrification and displacement problem. The expansion of resident association guarantees (as opposed to the ethical concept of right) beyond such homeowner privilege and towards the formation of separate tenant associations would go a long way towards combating gentrification and displacement, and in the intermediate run the very rationale for absentee landlordism. In politically revolutionary periods, periods that combine mass support to highly organized revolutionary movements hostile towards their own rulers with instability in the rulers’ own institutions – tenant associations have been capable of extending the participatory-democratic premise of parallelism. To quote Mike Macnair:
Now, actually, [revolutionary Russia] also had factory committees, elected factory committees, and God knows what else, elected block – tenants had the elected block committee for their housing block or street committee, or something like that. Masses of these organizational forms running in parallel…
This alone, however, is not enough to deal with residential gentrification. Moreover, even if residential landlords were under economic pressure to develop vacant and underutilized land (by means of land value taxation as discussed earlier in this chapter, and by other means), as opposed to legal pressure from grassroots occupations of vacant land and their subsequent development by non-profit community development organizations, there is still the problem of speculation on fully developed residential real estate. Sit-in protests from the 1960s to the present have occurred because of such speculation. Consider the case of financially stable renters being evicted simply because of landlord defaults, as reported by Bridget Huber of the Christian Science Monitor:
Nationwide, as many as 40 percent of families facing foreclosure-related evictions are renters [...] Congress and 13 states are considering laws to protect responsible renters and prevent communities from the blight of abandoned buildings that are stripped even of their copper fittings by scavengers, driving down property values.
[...]
The problem is particularly acute in the Northeast, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. By their estimates more than 50 percent of foreclosure-related evictions in some Northeastern cities involve renters.
[...]
In New Haven, Conn., property values have declined by 50 to 90 percent in the neighborhoods hardest hit by foreclosure, says Amy Marx, a staff attorney with New Haven Legal Assistance, which works with many tenants of bank-owned buildings. She suggests that the best way to stop the downward spiral of property values is to let renters stay in their homes.
But lenders see vacating the buildings as a necessary step in getting the properties fixed up and resold, says Rick Simon, a spokesman for Bank of America. “We believe it’s better for the community to have the property prepared for resale as soon as possible,” he says. “It’s generally more effective to market a property that is vacant than one occupied by a tenant.”
There have been rare cases whereby, as long as the tenant pays rent and does not neglect the property, the law provides for perpetual possession. The limitation of all residential writs of possession and eviction for the benefit of private parties to cases of tenant neglect would go a long way towards curbing residential gentrification and speculation, and when combined with the existence of tenant associations would facilitate (perhaps greater) property management by the tenants themselves in the intermediate run. In cases of non-renewals for purposes other than gentrification or speculation, most notably the replacement of a decaying apartment with a newer one of similar quality, there would still be no need for residential writs of possession and eviction for the benefit of private parties, so long as there exist tenant associations for landlords to engage in direct negotiations with.
It may be the case that the two demands above can be enacted exclusively by local governments. If so, the slogan “Right to the City” may even be suspected of promoting local politics over higher-level politics, the latter of which class struggle is based upon. What role, then, can governments at higher levels play? Part of what caused the subprime crisis in the US is the income tax deductibility of certain items pertaining to mortgages, such as mortgage interest and mortgage insurance premiums. This was aggravated further by former President George W. Bush when he promoted policies aimed at achieving an “ownership society” (private health care, education, and pensions, plus the proliferation of home ownership). In other countries, an “ownership society” has not been promoted as aggressively, if at all. As noted by Anushka Asthana of The Observer, the Institute of Public Policy Research in the UK has conducted research leading to a conclusion directly opposite an “ownership society”:
The study, by the Institute for Public Policy Research, exposes the day-to-day reality for low-income families across the UK.
By following 58 of them from boom to bust, through regular, in-depth interviews, and detailed diaries of what they spent and when, it reveals how small events could have a profound impact. Saddled with credit cards, mortgages (many self-certified) and high-interest loans, many of the families struggled to cope with things such as a washing machine breaking down, a leaking water pipe, a car needing its MOT, or children wanting warmer clothes in winter.
As a result of its research, the IPPR is calling for low-income families to be given life-long savings accounts, more affordable credit initiatives, a website on which to compare lenders and free and impartial financial advice. It also argues that policies to broaden the appeal of renting should be investigated. "Our reliance on debt – far from creating opportunity – has created vulnerability during this recession," the study concludes.
While income tax deductibility for mortgage interest and mortgage insurance premiums do not exist in other countries’ income tax laws, neither does income tax deductibility for residential rent payments, to complement traditional rental subsidies. The establishment of such tax deductibility (while scrapping the aforementioned US tax deductions), and the general establishment of comprehensive tax and other financial preferences for renting over home ownership, enables the basic principles regarding class struggle to be “kept consciously in view” through emphasizing higher-level politics.
As demonstrated by the UN report, “the right to the city,” perhaps envisaged originally as being the basis for a series of only local struggles, has transcended even national boundaries.
REFERENCES
The Right to the City by David Harvey [http://davidharvey.org/media/righttothecity.pdf]
About Right to the City by Right to the City (RTTC) [http://www.righttothecity.org/]
Olympics and World Cup soccer must take up cause of right to housing – UN expert by UN News Service [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34028]
Revolutionary Strategy (video) by Mike Macnair [http://vimeo.com/6249441]
Even renters who are paid up are getting kicked out by Bridget Huber, Christian Science Monitor [http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2009/0324/even-renters-who-are-paid-up-are-getting-kicked-out]
Cheap credit has pulled the UK's poorest families into a spiral of debt by Anushka Asthana, Observer [http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/07/cheap-credit-poorest-spiral-debt]