Abstract

The ‘HAVES’ and the ‘HAVE YACHTS ’ Socio-Spatial Struggles in London between the ‘Merely Wealthy’ and the ‘Super-Rich’

In the decade between 2007 and 2017 London changed fundamentally. This lecture is about how the actions of the transnational über-wealthy — the ‘have yachts’ — impinged on the life-worlds of the ‘merely wealthy’, — ‘the haves.’ The lecture explores the conceptual utility of gentrification as a way of thinking about these seismic urban changes, and concludes that profound socio- spatial changes and new intensities in the financialization of housing, neighborhood tensions, and cultural dislocations are reshaping London as a plutocratic city and the lives of those who live there in historically unprecedented ways. The concept of ‘super-gentrification’, then it is argued, does not adequately frame these circumstances.

This lecture is free and open to all interested researchers in the social sciences and beyond.

To reserve your place, please visit: https://esrc-dtp-annual-lecture-2019.eventbrite.co.uk