Diversity or Displacement? : Housing capital and the right to place

Richard Mohr

doi:10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1099

Authors

Richard Mohr Social Research Policy & Planning

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1099

Keywords:

Housing, gentrification, debt, capital, social rights

Abstract

Increasing costs of housing and processes of gentrification are excluding poorer people from convenient areas of cities where they have traditionally lived. This paper responds to the loss of diversity being experienced in part of inner western of Sydney which has been a first home for successive waves of immigrants. It considers claims to various rights and forms of capital as a possible foundation of resistance to gentrification and the commodification of housing, and for their potential to promote egalitarian participation in urban life more generally. It asks whether there is any sense in which residents of a neighbourhood can assert a right to place. In conclusion, the interaction between rights and forms of capital is seen to be mediated by exchange and contestation. These concepts will be used to examine some of the social, political and economic means for promoting claims to cultural rights and the primacy of housing’'s use value.

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Author Biography

Richard Mohr, Social Research Policy & Planning

Richard Mohr incorporated Social Research Policy & Planning in 1991. He has since been Research Director of the Centre for Court Policy and Planning and Director of the Legal Intersections Research Centre at the University of Wollongong. Until 2011 he was managing editor of the international journal Law Text Culture. He is a visiting professorial fellow with the Legal Intersections Research Centre at the University of Wollongong, and continues to work closely with the Institute for Judicial Research in Bologna (IRSIG-CNR), having published a book and several articles with Francesco Contini. His primary affiliation is now with Social Research Policy & Planning.

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