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Mixed Communities: Gentrification by Stealth? Gary Bridge, Tim Butler, and Loretta Lees

Mix Communities: Gentrification by Stealth? is an edited volume by Gary Bridge, Tim Butler, and Loretta Lees which examines the rise of social mix as an urban policy and planning goal in a variety of countries. The book’s editors draw together a range of case studies to examine the relationship between social mix policies and plans and gentrification. Challenging the notion that social mixing is an unquestioned good, the book professes three general objectives: (1) to demonstrate the spread, differences, and similarities between social mix policies enacted through urban renaissance or gentrification polices in countries around the world; (2) to evaluate the claim that gentrification can positively break down socially segregated, deprived areas; and (3) to start a debate on gentrification-promoting social mix policies that promote gentrification between gentrification researchers, policy-makers, planners, and housing groups. The book meets these objectives through an analysis of different national, housing policy, and neighborhood contexts. In the end, the book advances a critique of social mix policies by demonstrating how such polices are employed uncritically, often belying clear evidence that such policies will not reduce segregation or lift the poor out of poverty. The book proceeds in five parts. Part 1 involves general reflections on social mix policy enacted in different countries. The chapters in this part discuss the difficulty in defining success of social mixing as well as reviewing evidence on whether a social and economic mix has a positive impact on the poor’s welfare. Part 2 reviews two case studies of encouraging social mix in urban redevelopment projects, focusing on Canada and Germany. Emphasis is placed on the importance of context (i.e. politics, government, and economy) in the delivery of such policy and plans. Part 3 continues the examination of social mix policies and gentrification in different national settings, locating these policies in a neoliberal context, and demonstrating how such policies operate on a flawed deficit model approach to poor communities. Part 4 examines the rhetoric and reality of gentrification and social mix. These chapters, particularly compelling, examine the way social mixing is sold as social inclusion and “plain good sense” despite such policies being largely ineffective in boosting the poor’s welfare and increasing social interaction. Part 5 examines social mix policies and gentrification on the ground and chronicles that social mix policies often lead middle-income people into low-income communities displacing the poor (or at least, creating displacement pressure), destroying existing communities, and weakening organizing networks and, thus, the political strength of the poor. Like all good academic undertakings, this volume’s authors probe the underlying motivations behind the municipal use of their analytic object, social mix policy, and planning. The answer in every chapter is that because the purported benefits of social mixing are rarely met, social mix strategies appear to be about something else, determining what that something is provides one of the intriguing aspects of the book. A principal explanation woven through the chapters is neoliberalism, although, as one author points out, social mix emerged from progressive ideals, only later becoming regressive under