Gentrification is not just a phenomenon in wealthy cities; the poor are being displaced in fast-growing cities in the Global South too, as John Clarke explains

In the major cities of the world’s wealthiest countries, the harsh impacts of upscale redevelopment are well-known and have been for many years. Indeed, the use of the term ‘gentrification’ to characterise this process was first coined by British sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 with regard to the displacing of working-class communities in London that was already underway at the time.

As someone who spent decades working as an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in Toronto, I have been involved in many struggles against ‘the commodification of housing, the destructive power of the developers and the role of the politicians in enabling that power.’ That process continues at present and is actually intensifying.

The subordination of urban planning and housing provision to profit-driven and destructive forms of investment is by no means confined to wealthy countries, however. Throughout the Global South, including some of the most impoverished countries in Africa, the urban poor face the pressure of gentrification, even as they struggle to survive under dreadfully harsh and precarious conditions.

Poverty and dislocation

In 2021, the UN noted the incredible challenges facing Somalia, a country that has experienced such levels of drought, poverty, social dislocation and internal conflict that it had been labelled a ‘failed state’. At that time, the UN was appealing for international support ‘to prevent an already dire humanitarian situation from becoming a catastrophe.’ Yet, the UN insisted that ‘Somalia is on a path to stability’ and that its ‘upward trajectory is evident in the construction boom: as one analyst noted, the sound of the hammer is replacing the sound of gunfire in Somalia’s capital.’

This month, The New Humanitarian published a highly revealing article exploring the present ramifications of this very ‘construction boom’. It noted that ‘as investors pump money into new apartment buildings and shopping centres, they’re also widening inequality in a city where hundreds of thousands of displaced victims of war and drought struggle to survive.’

This ‘flow of desperate rural families heading to Mogadishu to escape insecurity and climate shocks has given Somalia one of the fastest urbanisation rates in the world. An estimated 700,000 displaced people have settled in recent years in the city’s overcrowded and neglected informal settlements.’ The article goes on to tell us that ‘a creeping gentrification is also underway as wealthy business elites – including returning diaspora Somalis – take advantage of the slowly improving security in Mogadishu to invest.’

In this context, ‘the urbanisation free-for-all has a social cost, discriminating as it does against those living on the margins of society – the displaced and the urban poor …as land values increase, there has been a related rise in forced evictions’ that are taking place on a massive scale. ‘Between January and July this year, close to 40,000 people – 75% of them women – were evicted in Mogadishu … Most evictions are by private landlords or the result of land grabbing by politicians and the well-connected. But displaced households that have settled in abandoned government buildings are also being cleared to make way for property development.’

Aisha Mohamed, a street vendor who was interviewed, stated that ‘in Mogadishu, new development is welcomed – but all we ask is to be included.’ To press this demand for inclusion, ‘she and a group of women street traders refused to be moved along from outside one of the city’s shopping malls during Ramadan earlier this year – commercially the busiest time of year.’ As she put it, that ‘day, my voice came out. We protested, and even local representatives from the mayor intervened and instructed the police to let us continue our business.’

Yet, as inspiring and hopeful as such acts of resistance are, the notion of inclusive development must be called into question. The process of redevelopment that is underway demands the clearing of Mogadishu’s ‘informal settlements’ and their impoverished populations and only very major struggles are likely to contain this or even place serious limits on it.

An article originally posted on Egyptian Streets, in 2022, considers the devastating impacts of gentrification in that country. It notes that over ‘38 per cent of Egypt’s urban cluster is considered informal, and with a 27.9 per cent poverty rate, the risk of displacement is significantly high for the majority of Egypt’s poorer areas.’ In this context, ‘forced evictions have become synonymous to new urban development, city upgrading, and the construction of financial and business centers in Egypt.’

Urban geographer Loretta Lees has argued that the gentrification process that is at work in the Global South has significantly different features from that impacting cities in wealthy countries. She asserts that unlike ‘gentrification in the global north which is associated with post-industrial cities and society and a turn away from industrial society … gentrification in the global south is associated with industrialization … it is also happening in parallel with the increase in slums in the global south, another factor that differentiates gentrification in the global south from the north.’

The Charter Cities Institute, writing from a perspective that is very sympathetic to the prevailing agenda of redevelopment, noted last year that the ‘past two decades have witnessed a surge in new city development across the Global South … Countries throughout the Global South are embracing new cities to address the challenges of rapid urbanization.’

Throughout the South, the displacement of rural populations and the creation of massive new urban areas has generated enormous opportunities for profit-driven redevelopment for both foreign capital and local investors. Millions of people are being caught up in the urbanisation process, seeking work in industrial enterprises that are integrated into the global supply chain or surviving on the margins in informal slum communities. At the same time, they are being challenged by a harsh and relentless drive to create expanding oases of wealth and privilege within those teeming urban centres.

Resisting gentrification

The challenge to the gentrification process is one important element of the struggles being taken up by the urban poor across the Global South. This has involved both sustained campaigns of resistance and explosive confrontations. One such struggle is unfolding within a few miles of central Cairo, on Al-Warraq, one of the River Nile Islands. It involves a community that is much longer established than many of the informally housed populations that face the pressures of gentrification.

As a recent article in The New Arab explains, although ‘the island is relatively simple, its strategic location has attracted real estate developers who see it as a lucrative investment, planning projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.’ A $500 deal was recently announced ‘to build three residential towers and a five-star hotel near the island.’ This followed a government decree to redevelop the island that was issued in 2018. As the local representative in the House of Deputies approvingly suggests, the ‘island’s development will transform it into a major tourist and investment destination, thanks to its prime location.’

The people who live in Al-Warraq, though they lack basic services, survive through fishing and farming, and displacement would be catastrophic for them, despite dubious assurances of adequate alternatives. They are fully aware that the threat they face is part of a very much broader redevelopment agenda. Already, ‘residents in areas such as the Maspero Triangle in Cairo, the Misr al-Kadima Tannery in southern Cairo, and al-Max in Alexandria have been relocated to make way for developments intended for affluent residents.’

Residents of Al-Warraq have pursued legal options but they are also holding protests to prevent police from landing on the island, ‘a rare act of resistance in contemporary Egypt.’ This has received support from Egyptian civil society and some political groups. Local resident Sabri al-Qot told The New Arab that he would rather die than be driven from his home. ‘Our properties are not just bricks and mortar or mud; they are our lives, our memories, and those of our ancestors,’ he said.

The pushing out of the hard-pressed urban poor in the countries of the Global South to serve the needs of investors based in the imperialist countries and local elite interests is an expression of the greed and irrationality of global capitalism. It is also a recipe for explosive resistance, as communities unite and fight back against the juggernaut of redevelopment. We may expect to see many such struggles in the years ahead.