THE CONCEPT OF “INFORMAL GENTRIFICATION” HAS NOT YET BEEN COINED AS AN ANALYTICAL CATEGORY BY ANY AUTHOR
After reviewing the academic bibliography —as well as more popular literature on the subject— we have not found examples of the concept “informal gentrification” being used by any author. At least, not in the way we propose it. We have searched extensively through the virtual library and found only three cases in which the term has been used. We explain them below.
The first appearance of the term took place in 2017, in the doctoral thesis submitted by Eleni Patatouka at Université Paris VIII, entitled Étude des mutations sociospatiales, système financier et marché immobilier en Grèce. Tendances de financiarisation du système du logement à Athènes au cours des années 2000. At one point in the work —and indeed only once— the author mentions “informal gentrification” to refer to urban changes in a neighbourhood affected by economic crisis, where traders of a specific ethnic origin —in this case Chinese traders— gradually replaced local residents. The excerpt is as follows:
“Parallèlement à ces pratiques, les habitants et les commerçants chinois du quartier participent à la hausse des prix de l’immobilier en renforçant les tendances d’une gentrification informelle, «ethnique».”
“Parallel to these practices, Chinese residents and traders in the neighbourhood contribute to rising real estate prices by reinforcing the tendencies of an ‘informal’, ‘ethnic’ gentrification.”
Here, Patatouka uses the notion of gentrification informelle not as a theoretical category, but descriptively, to point out that the revalorisation of the neighbourhood did not come only from above —institutions or large investors— but also from below, through migrant actors who, by means of commercial and rental networks, altered prices and configured new urban dynamics. In the case of certain neighbourhoods in Athens, Patatouka found that Chinese traders generated forms of informalised gentrification. The author uses the concept of “informal gentrification” simply to describe a form of gentrification whose origin lies outside formal institutional channels.
Something similar occurs in the study published in 2020 by Brazilian researchers Fabio José Ferraz and Denio Munia Benfatti, entitled “Certificados de potencial adicional de construção como mecanismo de financiamento das operações urbanas consorciadas ou como instrumento especulativo?” (Cadernos EBAPE.BR, no. 18). By “gentrificações informais”, the authors referred to processes of displacement and revalorisation that were not officially planned; that is, processes occurring outside formally recognised interventions. The excerpt in which the concept appears is found in the conclusions section:
“…o processo de globalização econômico-financeira vem condicionando uma imbricação cada vez maior entre os capitais financeiro e imobiliário (…) notadamente por meio dos grandes projetos de reestruturação urbana e das OUCs, mais especificamente, haja vista o aumento dos preços do solo nas áreas das OUCs e os subsequentes processos de gentrificação formais e informais.”
“…the process of economic-financial globalisation has been conditioning an increasingly close interweaving between financial and real estate capital (…) notably through large urban restructuring projects and Urban Consortium Operations, more specifically, given the increase in land prices in the areas affected by these operations and the subsequent processes of formal and informal gentrification.”
Ferraz and Benfatti are not using “informal gentrification” in the sense we propose. In their case, they position the term in contrast to “formal” gentrification, understood as that promoted by institutions. Thus, for them, “informal gentrification” is simply that which is driven by black land markets, invasions or ambiguous regularisation processes. The word “informal” is used merely as an adjective, in its most literal sense. Our proposal is deeper: we understand “informal gentrification” as a new typology of gentrification. It is also worth noting that Ferraz and Benfatti do not mention the word “informal” in any other paragraph of their article.
Finally, the last finding in our review of the bibliography also dates from 2020, and also comes from another thesis —notably, the concept appears to have been used exclusively by students. In this case, it is a Master’s thesis from Aalborg University, in which Rune Riisberg Funck studied Medellín’s Metrocable system. More specifically, he examined the so-called “Line J” of the city’s Metrocable, inaugurated in 2008. Funck uses the term “informal gentrification” on two occasions:
“…Line J is ’allowing’ a form of expansion of illegal and informal gentrification. And, that it is a problem, that it is not taken seriously in Medellin, because the people of Medellin are blinded by the success of the metro-cables in the city. (…) After Line J was build, a lot of decided to invest in the land because they thought that the land would become more expensive over time because of Line J. A lot of people chose to build houses at the empty areas around the stations so that they could rent it or sell it. It could be argued that Line J allowed a form of expansion of illegal and informal gentrification. At least, it is clear that Line J has improved the accessibility to the area, and that it has generated a reconstruction of some of the homes around Line J.”
As can be seen, Funck does not develop the concept —nor does he even appear to consider it a concept in itself— and simply uses “informal gentrification” descriptively, just as he refers to “illegal gentrification”. Like Patatouka (2017) and Ferraz and Benfatti (2020), Funck uses the word “informal” merely as an adjective. His study of Medellín describes how rising land prices —hence the use of the word “gentrification”— occurred through processes that were neither regulated nor formally organised —hence the use of the word “informal”.
These are the only three examples of academic production in which the words “gentrification” and “informal” appear together. Although their discovery clearly shows that there is a gap in theory that can be filled through our concept of “informal gentrification”, it must be acknowledged that other authors came very close to coining it before us.
Conceptual proximity… without naming the process
In the book Global Gentrifications, edited by the well-known scholars Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin and Ernesto López-Morales in 2015, two interesting chapters refer to processes of gentrification when they occur in informal settlements: “Confronting Favela Chic: The Gentrification of Informal Settlements in Rio de Janeiro” by J. Cummings, which analyses how the search for authenticity in favelas led to their gentrification, and “Slum Gentrification in Lisbon, Portugal: Displacement and the Imagined Futures of an Informal Settlement” by E. Ascensão, in which Eduardo Ascensão proposes the concept of “slum gentrification”.
Both authors further developed their research on informality and gentrification in other works. In the case of Cummings, it is highly relevant to consult his doctoral thesis, entitled Confronting the Favela Chic: Gentrification of Informal Settlements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2013), in which he describes the symbolic, economic and cultural revalorisation of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Ascensão, for his part, continued developing his concept of “slum gentrification” in a chapter of the same name included in the Handbook of Gentrification Studies, edited by Loretta Lees together with Martin Phillips in 2018.
Cummings and Ascensão were not the first to address the relationship between gentrification and informality —we have all the work of Ananya Roy, as well as that of López-Morales himself— but they did come very close to the idea of the new theoretical concept that we propose when we speak of “informal gentrification”, a term that neither of them —nor anyone before them— actually coined.
Bibliography for this section
Ascensão, E. (2015). “Slum gentrification in Lisbon, Portugal: displacement and the imagined futures of an informal settlement”. In L. Lees, H. B. Shin, & E. López-Morales (Eds.), Global Gentrifications: Uneven Development and Displacement (pp. 37–58). Bristol: Policy Press.
Ascensão, E. (2018). “Slum gentrification”. In L. Lees & M. Phillips (Eds.), Handbook of Gentrification Studies. Cheltenham & Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Cummings, J. (2013). Confronting the Favela Chic: Gentrification of Informal Settlements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Master’s thesis, Harvard University Graduate School of Design). Harvard University.
Cummings, J. (2015). “Confronting Favela Chic: The Gentrification of Informal Settlements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”. In L. Lees, H. B. Shin, & E. López-Morales (Eds.), Global Gentrifications: Uneven Development and Displacement (pp. 81–99). Bristol: Policy Press.
Ferraz, F. J., & Benfatti, D. M. (2020). “Certificados de potencial adicional de construção como mecanismo de financiamento das operações urbanas consorciadas ou como instrumento especulativo?” Cadernos EBAPE.BR, 18, Special Issue, 836–852.
Funck, R. R. (2020). Line J – A Case Study of Mobilities in Medellin (Master’s thesis, Aalborg University, Department of Mobilities and Urban Studies). Aalborg University.
Patatouka, E. (2017). Étude des mutations sociospatiales, système financier et marché immobilier en Grèce: Tendances de financiarisation du système du logement à Athènes au cours des années 2000 (Doctoral thesis, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis). Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis.
