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Abstract
Displacement from one’s home is a contested issue, not only in actual urban politics but also in urban research. Empirical studies rely on rather different notions of displacement, which makes a coherent picture of the phenomenon difficult to obtain. In this article, we first deal with the conceptual ambiguities in the debate on displacement so as to carve out an empirically viable definition of direct displacement that focuses on the decision-making process before a relocation. We then present and discuss our own empirical findings on displacement. Finally, we reflect on possible conclusions one could draw from these findings in relation to housing policy. Our empirical results come from a survey we conducted of more than 2,000 tenants who had recently moved from their homes in Berlin, Germany. We found that more than 15% of the respondents had experienced direct displacement. A rent increase after refurbishment or the selling of the property proved to be the most common triggers of displacement. Addressing these particular issues therefore appears to be critical to curbing displacement in tight housing markets.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Moritz Rinn (Citation2021, 303f.) chose a slightly different approach to explain the reactions of tenants to rent increases, based on qualitative interviews with tenants who experienced displacement pressure in Hamburg, Germany. According to Moritz Rinn, tenants have three sets of actions available to them when their rent is increased. If they perceive the increase as a problem, injustice, or illegitimacy, they can choose among (1) ‘involuntary’ cooperation, (2) changing the terrain (e.g., negotiating with the social welfare office to cover the increased rent), and (3) confrontation (e.g., objecting to a modernisation that is followed by a rent increase). Alternatively, they can deproblematise the rent increase (e.g., accept it on the grounds that it is legitimate). These four actions offer a deeper understanding of tenants’ actions in the face of displacement pressure, but they have a disadvantage in regard to our conceptualisation of displacement in that moving away as a reaction to displacement pressure is not a separate action set (but is presumably included in Action Set 2, changing the terrain).
2 Although the sample met all criteria of representativeness, the actual composition of respondents, as is almost always the case in social science, may have some biases. We can estimate a potential bias regarding age, gender, nationality, and current place of residence of the respondents because the population register we used for the sampling provides information on these variables. Although the survey turned out to be fairly representative in terms of age and current place of residence of the respondents, men and persons with a nationality other than German are underrepresented. We cannot judge the representativeness regarding other demographic characteristics because we do not have further information on the basic population available. We suspect that people with low incomes and low levels of education are slightly underrepresented. These population groups are often classified as particularly vulnerable to displacement but tend to participate less often in surveys (e.g., Schipper Citation2021, 174). Readers should keep this in mind when interpreting the results.
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Fabian Beran
Fabian Beran is a postdoc researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s Geography Department, studying displacement and gentrification. Email: [email protected]
Henning Nuissl
Henning Nuissl is a professor of Applied Geography and Urban Planning at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research areas are urban development and local governance and politics. Email: [email protected]