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with new or improved jobs, essential services, infrastructure, housing and green
space. When implemented carefully, such policies can lead to sustainable urban
regeneration, making cities more liveable and creating spaces where communities and
cultures can flourish.
88. Too often, however, the benefits of economic growth do not flow to the long standing working-class residents of those cities. Instead, the benefits result in
gentrification, a contested concept that generally describes a process of
neighbourhood change, whereby financial investment results in an influx of higher income residents and the displacement of the lower-income, often marginalized or
minority inhabitants. This is the direct result of economic development policies and
practices that over-emphasize private investment and the commodification of
housing, exacerbating existing inequalities and depriving many people of their ability
to continue to afford to live in their neighbourhoods. 111 Gentrification presents a key
challenge for authorities, communities and developers trying to revitalize
neighbourhoods that have historically suffered from underinvestment, while also
avoiding the displacement of lower-income inhabitants.
89. As noted in a report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a
component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to
non-discrimination in this context, discussions in human rights forums have typically
focused on the negative impacts that gentrification has on economic and social rights,
including the rights to adequate housing, education and health care ( A/HRC/13/20).
Notwithstanding, gentrification also poses significant threats to cultural rights.
Neighbourhoods are not only transformed physically but culturally as well through
physical and demographic change that disrupts the cultural connections that people
have with place and community.
90. While many lower-income residents are forced to relocate to more affordable
neighbourhoods (often outside city centres), those that remain are subjected to forms
of cultural displacement, characterized by new spaces, norms and traditions that cater
to the incoming wealthier residents and replace their own. Retail spaces,
entertainment venues, eateries and public spaces accommodate the tastes of middle and upper-class residents, transforming the character of the neighbourhood and
causing a sense of cultural dislocation for incumbent residents.
91. Gentrification threatens minority cultures through urban development projects
throughout the world. For example, a project in North London sought to regenerate
an area that housed the Seven Sisters Market, also commonly referred to as the “Latin
Market,” the “Latin Village” or “El Pueblito Paisa”. The market is a bustling
commercial centre and a unique cultural hub for Latin American traders, their families
and members of the wider Latin American community in London. Among other
things, the market provides a vital space for these individuals and communities to
meet, speak their language, engage in traditional activities and participate in cultural
life, including through intercultural interactions with other traders originating from
more than 20 nations.
92. For 15 years, local residents, small business owners and traders campaigned
against the planned redevelopment project, partially on the grounds that it would
violate their cultural rights under international law. 112 This campaign spurred the
interventions of several United Nations special procedures, including the previous
Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, calling on the Government to respect
the cultural rights of minority traders and to adopt measures to protect and fulfil these
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OHCHR, contribution to the 2014 Economic and Social Council integration segment. Available
at www.un.org/en/ecosoc/integration/pdf/officeofthehighcommissionerforhumanrights.pdf .
https://savelatinvillage.org.uk/about_us/.
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