Diversity of Urban Inclusivity: Perspectives Beyond Gentrification in Advanced City-Regions

This book explores, situates, and discusses the contours of urban inclusivity amidst and beyond the well-researched neoliberal turn in urban governance. While it is generally accepted that urban social issues are susceptible to global woes, these perceptions draw only limited attention to the plurality of interventions that cities undertake—or facilitate—in managing their social turfs. By addressing the apparent lack of theorizations on everyday heterogeneities in urban place-making, especially in non-Western contexts, this book highlights the role of inclusionary practices by different stakeholders as an explicit pattern of urbanization. It does so by focusing on old urban centralities that have an outspoken history in experimenting with inclusivity. The book is guided by two interrelated questions: (1) What particular urban settings promote inclusionary features in contrast to the conspicuous exclusionary mechanisms of market-led urbanization, and (2) how dowe conceptualize these features in dialogue with concurrent urban theories that continue to grapple with the structural properties of exclusionary urbanization under the auspices of the neoliberal turn and gentrification? To answer these questions, the chapters provide a rich empirical account of inclusionary initiatives by the city governments, the voluntary organization sector, and informal communities, each revealing a unique new set of spatial approaches to urban inclusivity. The book concludes with the political implications of envisioning urban inclusivity as a negotiatory moment between key stakeholder interests in a capitalist society. Primarily intended for researchers and graduate students in the fields of urban geography, sociology, migration, and welfare studies, the book is also a valuable source for policymakers and practitioners in the fields of social planning and civil society at large. 

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- Why is “Gentrification as a Dirty Word” Irrelevant in Japan: A Brief History of Recent Residential Rights.- A Neighbourhood Commons Proposition Based on a Comparison of the Gentrification Processes in the Global North, South and Japan.- Jjok-bang as Symbols of Poverty: The Creation and Eradication of Seoul’s Last Residential Safety-Net.- Material Changes, Symbolic Transformations: Commercial Gentrification and Urban Change in Turin, Italy.- Service hubs: Stuck in Time, Stuck in Place.- Spatial Dynamics and Strengths of Service Hubs Addressing Homelessness in Global Miami.- The Impact of Increasing Welfare Needs and Exclusion of Homeless People in Urban Underclass Communities: The Case of Kotobuki, Yokohama.- Resilience of Homeless People in Hong Kong: A Structurational Perspective.- Voluntary services in Disordered Space: The Inner-city Service Hub for Foreign Workers in Singapore.- Transition or Consolidation? The Role of Inner-City Neighbourhoods in the Integration of Immigrants in Brussels.- The Historical Transformation of Korean Resident Areas in Osaka: Its Dynamics in the Absence of Urban Policy.- Community Creation and Transformation in Higashikujo, Kyoto.- Uncovering the Inclusivity of Brixton: A Historical Analysis of Diversity and Its Relation to Gentrification in London’s Inner City.- Housing Policy and the Role of Housing Associations: The Case of Amsterdam and Urban Renewal in the Bijlmermeer.- From “Politique de la Ville” to “Renouvellement Urbain”: Paradigm Shifts of Urbanism in the Banlieue of Paris.- From Confinement to Dispersion: The Changing Geographies of Tokyo's Homeless Policies and Last Housing Safety Net.- Housing Policies and the (Re-)Shaping of the Inner City: The Case of Osaka City’s Nishinari Ward.- From Stigma to Pride: New Practices of Housing-based Welfare for Regenerating Disadvantaged Communities in Taipei.- Synthesis.