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Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War
A revolutionary new study of gentrification ... and how to stop it.
Cities around the world are in the midst of a profound transformation as the wealthy price out the remnants of the urban working class, especially people of color. Displacement is neither accidental or inevitable. It happens because a whole range of people and institutions profit handsomely. Defying Displacement , focused on the US but informed by global examples, investigates gentrification from the perspective of the people fighting it, members of communities whose survival is threatened by some of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Andrew Lee names the names and identifies the actual state and corporate forces that work together to enrich a very specific group of property developers and real estate investors who make a killing, politicians who watch their tax bases grow, banks that write profitable loans for new businesses and mortgages for new homeowners. Meanwhile, business districts are planned, tax abatements unveiled, redevelopment schemes dreamed up, corporate and university campuses expanded, and ordinary people are driven from their homes.
The city has long served as the stage for political life and popular revolt. As mass displacement alters the composition of gentrifying cities, the avenues available for social change become unsettled as well, forcing us to reimagine our strategies for building a better world. Around the world communities are pushing the struggle against forced displacement in new directions, shutting down developments and evictions and bringing cities to a halt, fighting militarized police and the most powerful companies in the world. Activists and residents in struggle—dozens of whom are interviewed by Lee to inform his work—are charting the way forward to affordable and sustainable cities run by the people who inhabit them.
Cities around the world are in the midst of a profound transformation as the wealthy price out the remnants of the urban working class, especially people of color. Displacement is neither accidental or inevitable. It happens because a whole range of people and institutions profit handsomely. Defying Displacement , focused on the US but informed by global examples, investigates gentrification from the perspective of the people fighting it, members of communities whose survival is threatened by some of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Andrew Lee names the names and identifies the actual state and corporate forces that work together to enrich a very specific group of property developers and real estate investors who make a killing, politicians who watch their tax bases grow, banks that write profitable loans for new businesses and mortgages for new homeowners. Meanwhile, business districts are planned, tax abatements unveiled, redevelopment schemes dreamed up, corporate and university campuses expanded, and ordinary people are driven from their homes.
The city has long served as the stage for political life and popular revolt. As mass displacement alters the composition of gentrifying cities, the avenues available for social change become unsettled as well, forcing us to reimagine our strategies for building a better world. Around the world communities are pushing the struggle against forced displacement in new directions, shutting down developments and evictions and bringing cities to a halt, fighting militarized police and the most powerful companies in the world. Activists and residents in struggle—dozens of whom are interviewed by Lee to inform his work—are charting the way forward to affordable and sustainable cities run by the people who inhabit them.
216 pages, Paperback
Published February 6, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 12, 2024
Defying Displacement is one of the best texts I've read regarding gentrification and related struggles. Don't let the length fool you though. Andrew Lee uses it quite well and packs a ton of well researched info into a short space. I wish more books were focused like this one is on quality of information rather than filling space. The book is not simply an academic exercise though, which brings me to more of its strengths.
While there is a little jargon here and there, DD is overall accessibly written. Much can be said about texts written about target populations and struggles in a language that only those with expensive educations tend to speak and/or can easily grasp. More than the accessibility aspect though, there is real style to this book. It is artfully constructed in both how it's written and how it's organized. The book has a sort of narrative arc in a way despite being full of short chapters that sometimes jump from place to place. Lee has a way with words that drew me into the struggles he was discussing. He uses more quotes from people experiencing and resisting gentrification than he does quotes from outside "experts" on the issue. He focuses on those who may not have the academic language for what they're doing, but who have real experience in the struggle in ways that are even more valuable than those who joined based on the category of resistance. I imagine that any reader would have a tough time making an argument against his points.
Much of the text discusses issues around gentrification that are common in every text on the topic- (usually) white people and business owners move into a low income neighborhood (often) of color and systematically displace those people by raising housing costs and attracting their friends and colleagues who then paint the original inhabitants as a problem. Lee delves deeper into how exactly these things occur and how tech industries especially have come to play a major part. He also discusses how these industries often still require labor from the displaced people, not only making their rent skyrocket, but requiring them to still find a way to commute back to work in the area for the gentrifiers.
Lee also goes over the many ways that initiatives that may seem good to an outsider are used as vehicles of gentrification. Things like "eco friendly transit" can be used as a trojan horse for gentrification. The proponents may even claim that it will help current residents before promptly finding ways to force them out. Another effort would be to bring "the arts" or other developments to the area, ignoring and often removing the art and culture already existing there.
Lee also has criticisms and suggestions for various leftist movements. He discusses the real issues with flattening the "working class" into a homogenous group. He also discusses the problems with trying to apply the exact politics of leftist movements from decades ago onto the world of today. We must be more creative in how we approach problems, especially with how ingrained the tech industries are that were not present in the days of Lenin or Goldman.
There are many more discussions woven throughout the text which reads to me like a simultaneous human interest story, academic essay, and grounded manifesto. I really enjoyed Lee's artful way of telling a story using what can often be dense or confusing bits of info. If someone wanted a book on gentrification, either a beginner or someone with experience, I'd feel comfortable handing them this. As a side note, AK Press' printing has great graphic design, making reading all the more engaging and enjoyable.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
While there is a little jargon here and there, DD is overall accessibly written. Much can be said about texts written about target populations and struggles in a language that only those with expensive educations tend to speak and/or can easily grasp. More than the accessibility aspect though, there is real style to this book. It is artfully constructed in both how it's written and how it's organized. The book has a sort of narrative arc in a way despite being full of short chapters that sometimes jump from place to place. Lee has a way with words that drew me into the struggles he was discussing. He uses more quotes from people experiencing and resisting gentrification than he does quotes from outside "experts" on the issue. He focuses on those who may not have the academic language for what they're doing, but who have real experience in the struggle in ways that are even more valuable than those who joined based on the category of resistance. I imagine that any reader would have a tough time making an argument against his points.
Much of the text discusses issues around gentrification that are common in every text on the topic- (usually) white people and business owners move into a low income neighborhood (often) of color and systematically displace those people by raising housing costs and attracting their friends and colleagues who then paint the original inhabitants as a problem. Lee delves deeper into how exactly these things occur and how tech industries especially have come to play a major part. He also discusses how these industries often still require labor from the displaced people, not only making their rent skyrocket, but requiring them to still find a way to commute back to work in the area for the gentrifiers.
Lee also goes over the many ways that initiatives that may seem good to an outsider are used as vehicles of gentrification. Things like "eco friendly transit" can be used as a trojan horse for gentrification. The proponents may even claim that it will help current residents before promptly finding ways to force them out. Another effort would be to bring "the arts" or other developments to the area, ignoring and often removing the art and culture already existing there.
Lee also has criticisms and suggestions for various leftist movements. He discusses the real issues with flattening the "working class" into a homogenous group. He also discusses the problems with trying to apply the exact politics of leftist movements from decades ago onto the world of today. We must be more creative in how we approach problems, especially with how ingrained the tech industries are that were not present in the days of Lenin or Goldman.
There are many more discussions woven throughout the text which reads to me like a simultaneous human interest story, academic essay, and grounded manifesto. I really enjoyed Lee's artful way of telling a story using what can often be dense or confusing bits of info. If someone wanted a book on gentrification, either a beginner or someone with experience, I'd feel comfortable handing them this. As a side note, AK Press' printing has great graphic design, making reading all the more engaging and enjoyable.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
April 23, 2024
A good, solidly researched book
Overall good and important concepts and schools of thought
Very dense though; I felt that there were easier ways to word and explain things in a more attainable way in which you don’t need to have an advanced degree to read
Additionally, I thought the way it was organized was interesting, but odd. I think it would have better served the book to take each of these gentrified areas (San Jose, Silicon Valley, Philly, etc) and give them their own chapter and really dig in as opposed to sprinkling different parts of each city’s relationship with gentrification throughout the book
Overall good and important concepts and schools of thought
Very dense though; I felt that there were easier ways to word and explain things in a more attainable way in which you don’t need to have an advanced degree to read
Additionally, I thought the way it was organized was interesting, but odd. I think it would have better served the book to take each of these gentrified areas (San Jose, Silicon Valley, Philly, etc) and give them their own chapter and really dig in as opposed to sprinkling different parts of each city’s relationship with gentrification throughout the book
February 7, 2024
A thoroughly researched and convincingly argued book that covers a lot of ground in short time. The short chapters made it easy to read in small bits without losing the thread of the overarching argument(s). A bit dense at times, so it was not as quick of a read as usual for me, but that's a positive thing! It meant I had a lot to chew on and I found myself highlighting lines on every other page it seemed.
Lee carefully connects the displacement of gentrification with the ideological and material histories that make this process seem like a natural and inevitable outcome. He does so examining these intersections in parts, which correspond to segments in the book: Space, Place, Labor, Terror, and War. These are both literal and figurative modes of analyzing how multiple overlapping systems of marginalization underwrite the removal of persons - their lives, cultures, histories, and networks - from their homes, a concept itself that Lee rightly notes is tied to far more than material location. When the forcibly removed collectively resist, as history shows time and again, racial and socioeconomic disparities are re-entrenched via retaliatory means. If there were a sentence from the book that captures all of these complex ideas, for me, it would be that the "governing logic of contemporary urban mass displacement is counterinsurgency" (107).
Finally, on a personal note, this book was challenging to read as someone who considers herself committed to dismantling systems of oppression. That is because it is unflinching in its reminders that many of the ways we perform 'progressivism' - such as the YIMBY movement, or DEI campaigns - are still rooted in and therefore dependent upon the very systems they aim to undo. This is perhaps the most important messaging in the book, namely, that we ought constantly to be critically examining where, to whom, to what we invest our efforts, lest we continue perpetuating the same harms we think we are redressing.
Lee carefully connects the displacement of gentrification with the ideological and material histories that make this process seem like a natural and inevitable outcome. He does so examining these intersections in parts, which correspond to segments in the book: Space, Place, Labor, Terror, and War. These are both literal and figurative modes of analyzing how multiple overlapping systems of marginalization underwrite the removal of persons - their lives, cultures, histories, and networks - from their homes, a concept itself that Lee rightly notes is tied to far more than material location. When the forcibly removed collectively resist, as history shows time and again, racial and socioeconomic disparities are re-entrenched via retaliatory means. If there were a sentence from the book that captures all of these complex ideas, for me, it would be that the "governing logic of contemporary urban mass displacement is counterinsurgency" (107).
Finally, on a personal note, this book was challenging to read as someone who considers herself committed to dismantling systems of oppression. That is because it is unflinching in its reminders that many of the ways we perform 'progressivism' - such as the YIMBY movement, or DEI campaigns - are still rooted in and therefore dependent upon the very systems they aim to undo. This is perhaps the most important messaging in the book, namely, that we ought constantly to be critically examining where, to whom, to what we invest our efforts, lest we continue perpetuating the same harms we think we are redressing.
February 7, 2024
The “Social War” of the subtitle is apt: Andrew Lee surveys a variety of interlocking systems in the 21st century city the way a general would analyze terrain for battle. And crucially, he gets perspective from the ground level troops, relying on interviews with activists engaged in struggle in various cities around the country.
Lee tracks fundamental shifts in the economy and its geography: globally connected cities or regions are his units of analysis for thinking strategically about capital accumulation and resistance. Accumulation there is driven by a class of gentrifiers small in number waited on by a separate class of increasingly displaced people being transported farther and farther into a central city whose benefits they’re denied.
Amidst the wreckage, Lee sees that these transformations open the possibility for new tactics and possibilities for fighting back, surveying movement leaders from San Jose to Philadelphia. This book feels like it’s on the bleeding edge of vital, experimental activism testing the boundaries and steadiness of the new reality. The stakes for everyday people are big: With the country seeing some of the largest participation in mass movements ever and a political situation ready to collapse from rot, interventions that seem speculative now are can, and maybe will, become models for the future quickly.
Lee tracks fundamental shifts in the economy and its geography: globally connected cities or regions are his units of analysis for thinking strategically about capital accumulation and resistance. Accumulation there is driven by a class of gentrifiers small in number waited on by a separate class of increasingly displaced people being transported farther and farther into a central city whose benefits they’re denied.
Amidst the wreckage, Lee sees that these transformations open the possibility for new tactics and possibilities for fighting back, surveying movement leaders from San Jose to Philadelphia. This book feels like it’s on the bleeding edge of vital, experimental activism testing the boundaries and steadiness of the new reality. The stakes for everyday people are big: With the country seeing some of the largest participation in mass movements ever and a political situation ready to collapse from rot, interventions that seem speculative now are can, and maybe will, become models for the future quickly.
December 24, 2025
Super duper good
October 30, 2025
Brief but engaging and well-researched. Lee’s arguments clearly paint the urgency of the struggles combatting displacement and gentrification against the larger backdrop of corporate/finance capitalism’s manipulation of the housing market, effectively capturing the revolutionary potential in this act of protest. Probably would pair well with Rolnik’s “Urban Warfare: Housing Under the Empire of Finance” which I still have to finish, and “Abolish Rent” by Tracy Rosenthal, which I just checked out from the library. Much, much to learn and defend.
February 2, 2024
Whether you read for inspiration and ideas, for entertainment, or to widen or deepen your knowledge - "Defying Displacement" has something for you. Andrew Lee's book is a charged read that methodically builds the story for how deliberate forces today converge to divide and displace people in the pursuit of profit. It builds both slowly and quickly - each chapter moves swiftly, but the attention to detail leaves each page filled with quotes, citations, and stories. It was even enjoyable - with clear and concise truth-bombs like characterizing the present day not just as a war "waged between the robber baron in coattails and the coal-miner in rags, [but that] this war is a class war between those who profit from the gentrification economy and those who do not" (122), to more subtle and even tender moments like "the street whose real name is different than the one on the street signs" (40). The content, tone, and afterglow is the warm one of a fellow co-conspirator, dedicated to a cause we all share.
"Defying Displacement" is organized into five sections: Space, Place, Labor, Terror, and War. Each of these sections builds a self-contained story, interwoven with power dynamics, lived experience, and lessons for people invested in a future that works for the people, not just the powerful. Dutifully citing numerous sources and seamlessly blending together on-the-ground voices with historical fact and movement leaders, Lee's sections are digestible standalones that also concatenate into a bigger picture together. And much like the story of gentrification and displacement itself, the implications for readers is that our interconnectedness is tied to our ability to identify these connections, to internalize these throughlines.
Below are a select set of quotes from each chapter.
- SPACE:
"The net result is that within the gentrifying city, low-wage workers, especially workers of color, remain economically tied to the affluent city core while accessible housing options move farther and farther away." (26)
- PLACE:
"A fight for culture unfolds into a fight over communal as opposed to capitalist ownership, and implicit or explicit critique of market exchange itself." (50)
- LABOR:
"The horror that pushes teenagers onto the Caltrain tracks is not of being a worker instead of an owner. It is a falling from the circle of workers who do well in the new economy into those who do not, from those able to gentrify to those only ever displaced." (95)
- TERROR:
"If struggle against gentrification is to struggle against land as commodity, it must also be a struggle against the government that enforces its commodification. Anti-gentrification movements keep running up against public, private, and non-profit institutions that preach equity and inclusion while ensuring that the parameters of public debate never stray too far from endorsing projects sure to create mass exclusion through gentrification. The struggle against displacement implies a struggle for autonomy." (100)
- WAR:
"We must unfortunately still contend with those whose superficial concern for the oppressed is outweighed by a greater fear of the oppressed developing just such an autonomous power. Neither the benevolence of corporate charity nor the 'proper channels' offered by local representative democracy have proven, in any city in the world, sufficient to halt economic gentrification. Yet the partisans of propriety and moralists of reform continue to insist that those facing displacement and death restrict themselves to permissible tactics proven to fail." (150)
Folks can come at this book from all manner of seats - armchair critics, frontline community organizers, folks that care but can't act, the inquisitive individuals not well-versed but still with questions.... Sharing best practices and lived experiences is the way of community-based resistance committed to itself. Reading and making space for the facts and connections laid out in "Defying Displacement" is in itself a praxis for that kind of commitment to a growth mindset. Each chapter is a gateway or entry point to any level of the discussion, and each creates a useful frame - perhaps a land organizer jumps in on land, while an anti-war activist jumps in on terror - that each inform movement struggles today. Taken together, it's a useful portrayal of the way power infiltrates community to separate people from place and separates the working class from recognizing its interconnectedness; it also explores how to resist that unnatural and manmade push. Read a chapter, share with a friend - "Defying Displacement" should be for everyone, because the opportunities it offers are for us all.
"Defying Displacement" is organized into five sections: Space, Place, Labor, Terror, and War. Each of these sections builds a self-contained story, interwoven with power dynamics, lived experience, and lessons for people invested in a future that works for the people, not just the powerful. Dutifully citing numerous sources and seamlessly blending together on-the-ground voices with historical fact and movement leaders, Lee's sections are digestible standalones that also concatenate into a bigger picture together. And much like the story of gentrification and displacement itself, the implications for readers is that our interconnectedness is tied to our ability to identify these connections, to internalize these throughlines.
Below are a select set of quotes from each chapter.
- SPACE:
"The net result is that within the gentrifying city, low-wage workers, especially workers of color, remain economically tied to the affluent city core while accessible housing options move farther and farther away." (26)
- PLACE:
"A fight for culture unfolds into a fight over communal as opposed to capitalist ownership, and implicit or explicit critique of market exchange itself." (50)
- LABOR:
"The horror that pushes teenagers onto the Caltrain tracks is not of being a worker instead of an owner. It is a falling from the circle of workers who do well in the new economy into those who do not, from those able to gentrify to those only ever displaced." (95)
- TERROR:
"If struggle against gentrification is to struggle against land as commodity, it must also be a struggle against the government that enforces its commodification. Anti-gentrification movements keep running up against public, private, and non-profit institutions that preach equity and inclusion while ensuring that the parameters of public debate never stray too far from endorsing projects sure to create mass exclusion through gentrification. The struggle against displacement implies a struggle for autonomy." (100)
- WAR:
"We must unfortunately still contend with those whose superficial concern for the oppressed is outweighed by a greater fear of the oppressed developing just such an autonomous power. Neither the benevolence of corporate charity nor the 'proper channels' offered by local representative democracy have proven, in any city in the world, sufficient to halt economic gentrification. Yet the partisans of propriety and moralists of reform continue to insist that those facing displacement and death restrict themselves to permissible tactics proven to fail." (150)
Folks can come at this book from all manner of seats - armchair critics, frontline community organizers, folks that care but can't act, the inquisitive individuals not well-versed but still with questions.... Sharing best practices and lived experiences is the way of community-based resistance committed to itself. Reading and making space for the facts and connections laid out in "Defying Displacement" is in itself a praxis for that kind of commitment to a growth mindset. Each chapter is a gateway or entry point to any level of the discussion, and each creates a useful frame - perhaps a land organizer jumps in on land, while an anti-war activist jumps in on terror - that each inform movement struggles today. Taken together, it's a useful portrayal of the way power infiltrates community to separate people from place and separates the working class from recognizing its interconnectedness; it also explores how to resist that unnatural and manmade push. Read a chapter, share with a friend - "Defying Displacement" should be for everyone, because the opportunities it offers are for us all.
February 9, 2024
Defying Displacement is grounding, a necessary read that peels back the platitudes and reductionist, oversimplified justifications we’re routinely fed about our world. Representation won’t save us, nor will implementing the political theory of centuries past. Union organizing is important, but wholly insufficient to protecting people from displacement, especially when it comes to tech and other highly paid workers that gentrify and displace. There are no easy, comforting answers in this book, but it did validate the cognitive dissonance I feel on a daily basis. Rather than induce hand-wringing, Lee invites us to recognize the task at hand, daunting though it will be. As a union organizer myself, I highly recommend this book to anyone in movement spaces that knows they’re working on one piece of the puzzle, but needs a reminder of where we must ultimately head. I further recommend this book to anyone who’s carved out a comfortable niche for themselves in this gentrification economy, and might feel guilty or helpless to change things. This book illuminates how much bigger this struggle is than any one of us, how the state has incentivized these conditions, and how crucial it is to see through that, regardless of how you as an individual fit into it right now.
February 11, 2024
Defying Displacement turned anti-gentrification work from an often-misunderstood DSA talking point to an issue crucial to understanding anti-racism, queer liberation, and anarchy itself. Making an argument for place and urban space as the locus of all oppression—and thus, all liberationist movements and tendencies—Lee inspires the reader to not only understand the societal forces that lead to displacement and housing inequity, but prefigure anarchy by transforming the way they relate to public space. Every organizer, and truly every human, should read.
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June 19, 2025Valuable insights into the various struggles against displacement and gentrification throughout the world and in different cities across the US. Appreciated the acknowledgment of suburbs being the centers of where the historically displaced now reside and the need to find new ways to connect among farther distanced groups to create unified struggle against the wealthy and tech overlords which dominate the modern constructed urban space
February 6, 2024
A great book that covers a lot in bite size chunks. There’s a variety of topics with the right amount of detail that makes you want to keep going. Totally approachable for varying levels. Lee’s voice comes through and he includes many quotes and citations as well as a helpful index. Read it, read it again, share it with a friend, talk about it. There’s so much to take away and apply!
February 7, 2024
I loved this book! Drawing together the connections between silicon valley, settler colonialism, white supremacy and policing, Defying Displacement gives us history, personal accounts, as well resistance struggles today.
Its poetic in its scope. For everyone fighting displacement from home, community and the places we truly love, this book is highly readable and relevant. <3
Its poetic in its scope. For everyone fighting displacement from home, community and the places we truly love, this book is highly readable and relevant. <3
August 28, 2024
…those waged workers who are most impoverished or precariously employed are increasingly limited in their ability to extract concessions from the fragmented workplaces to which they have been assigned. (p. 86)
Book was focused on stirring up the reader against gentrification but failed to provide meaningful takeaways beyond a socialism-focused anarchy.
Book was focused on stirring up the reader against gentrification but failed to provide meaningful takeaways beyond a socialism-focused anarchy.
February 6, 2024
A phenomenal book detailing a community's fight against gentrification in San Jose. highly recommend for anyone interested in resisting housing, seeking to learn more about gentrification (and how to resist it), and for folks interested in figuring out how they organize beyond city council/legislative politics. This quote gives great insight into the book, “The strategy of politicians and developers is often to play the interests of precarious tenants against the currently unhoused. The police and property developers pretend to be the allies of tenants in “cleaning up” the neighborhood, though the average tenant is far closer to becoming unhoused themselves than they are to becoming a police sergeant or real estate CEO” (64).
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