Resisting Redevelopment
Protest in Aspiring Global Cities

In ten global cities, residents facing displacement from redevelopment and gentrification mobilized creatively to impact policies.

Eleonora Pasotti (Author)

9781108478021, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 March 2020

404 pages, 3 b/w illus. 7 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 3 cm, 0.6 kg

'… the book is an ambitious undertaking. It demonstrates the vast variations in economic, political, and legal institutions across cities in both the Global South and North and how these conditions shape protest strategies and outcomes … can be a useful guide for broadening the comparative lens for small-N studies on urban protests in globalizing cities.' Werner Eichhorst, American Journal of Sociology

The politics of urban development is one of the most enduring, central themes of urban politics. In Resisting Redevelopment, Eleonora Pasotti explores the forces that enable residents of 'aspiring global cities,' or economically competitive cities, to mobilize against gentrification and other forms of displacement, as well as what makes mobilizations successful. Scholars and activists alike will benefit from this one-of-a-kind comparative study. Impressive in its scope, this book examines twenty-nine protest campaigns over a decade in ten major cities across five continents, from Santiago to Seoul to Los Angeles. Pasotti sheds light on an approach that is both understudied and remarkably effective - the practice of successful organizers deploying 'experiential tools,' or events, social archives, neighborhood tours, and performances designed to attract participants and transform the protest site into the place to be. With this book, Pasotti promises to provide a creative and novel contribution to the literature of contentious politics.

Part I. Setting the Comparison: 1. Introduction
2. Explaining protest against urban redevelopment
3. Research design and overview of results
4. Aspiring global cities
Part II. Explaining Mobilization: 5. Experiential tools and networks
6. Squatting, experiential tools, and protest legacies
7. Judicial resistance, experiential tools, and protest legacies
8. Protest with high union support: Buenos Aires
Part III. Explaining Impact: 9. Council allies and partisan alignments
10. Shaping redevelopment in public housing estates
11. Militancy with a twist: fighting art to deter displacement in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles
12. Conclusion
Appendix 1. Qualitative comparative analysis
Appendix 2. Partisan alignments
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Comparative politics [JPB], Sociology [JHB]