A property framework for understanding gentrification

This paper explores the relationship between property and gentrification, building on a case study of the neighbourhood of Mar Mikhael (Beirut, Lebanon). First, we discuss the ways in which the distribution of property ownership shapes processes of displacement. We then investigate how property is made and reorganized through processes of gentrification, arguing that the mechanisms through which gentrification occurs in Mar Mikhael are intimately connected to the very logic in which land is conceptualized and managed as property through the ownership model. A dominant logic of managing the city as the sum of privately owned property lots dictates the necessity to streamline and clarify property titles, empowering developers who can forcibly acquire lots even when other property claimants are reluctant to sell. We further argue that a proper assessment of the role of property in gentrification processes can only be made in relation to the larger regulatory framework in which land is imagined and managed (e.g. as shelter, as asset), and that facilitates or limits gentrification by creating the financial incentives for developers to activate the legal property framework in different contexts. The logic of private ownership has dramatic effects on the ability of neighbourhood residents to resist gentrification, particularly because it imposes an individuated process of negotiation and a limited ceiling for what one can reclaim, ultimately precluding the possibility of claiming one’s right to the city both within and outside the property framework.