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作者

Hadas Zur

来源

URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW,Vol.59,Issue3,P.

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

摘要

Numerous studies have shown how gentrification processes promote and are supported by an increase in policing in the changing environment (Laniyonu 2018; Sharp 2014; Laniyonu 2018; Bloch and Meyer 2019; Beck 2020; Cheshire, Fitzgerald and Liu 2018). However, the voices and reflections of police officers who operate in these transformative times and spaces have yet to be heard. Gentrification is a worldwide urban phenomenon that reshapes cities and produces multi-layered conflicts. Lawton (2020) suggests that gentrification can be understood as a particular manifestation of uneven development, where a group, by virtue of its class and wealth, comes to dominate a specific locale to the detriment of other social groups, particularly the working class (Lawton 2020: 268). Although the concept of gentrification has been criticized for being overly used (Maloutas 2012), it can characterize the spatial, demographic, social and urban transformation in which police operate. The literature on gentrification and policing highlights how gentrifying areas are subject to more intensive police presence, stop-and-arrest practices, aggressive police tactics and surveillance (Sharp 2014). These claims are raised by long-term residents who suffer from and witness intensified police presence in their neighborhoods (Freeman 2011; Fagan et al. 2009; Maharawal 2017; Parekh 2015; Newberry 2021), as evidenced by empirical data on 311 calls to police (Laniyonu 2018) and from qualitative studies with new residents who demand more policing (Bloch and Meyer 2019). Christensen and Albrecht (2020) suggest that urban policing should be examined as a bordering practice. Hence, policing gentrification, a process that reorders borders and sociospatial demarcations in a city, activates hyper-borderwork. Alternatively, as suggested by Ramírez (2020), gentrification can be understood as creating a borderland and warrants the use of borderland analytics, which emphasizes how gentrification is experienced, embodied, and materialized through policing practices and the everyday social and spatial borderwork of the police.This study focuses on the perspective of police officers working in a high-crime neighborhood undergoing gentrification in South Tel Aviv. It is based on qualitative interviews with police officers and commanders (N-15), ethnographic work with urban police and a spatial analysis of urban renewal. Qualitative research regarding police and security at large contributes to the study of borders and security (Côté-Boucher, Infantino and Salter 2014). It sheds light on the practices and daily routines that construct and reinforce borders. Moreover, it reveals the interpretations and reflections of the actors. In this case, interviews with police strengthen the arguments of past research and confirm that police work intensifies under gentrification to include more order maintenance policing (Sharp 2014) and criminalization of incivilities in the designated areas (Peršak and Di Ronco 2018). However, beyond that, the results reveal the reflexive insights of the officers that arise from working in a complex environment of sociospatial transformation. Their reflections are divided into three levels: local, social and urban. On the local level, they question the effectiveness of police practices such as situational crime prevention (SCP) in dealing with drug users and those experiencing houselessness in the absence of long-term solutions. On the social level, they highlight the moral dilemmas that arise from policing a socially mixed neighborhood. Spaces undergoing gentrification become complicated environments where old and new residents live in physical proximity but demand that social distance and boundaries be maintained. This study shows how digital communication plays a significant role in the ways the police distinguish between populations. Digital platforms and communication become a means of internal borderwork in gentrified areas. The digitally skilled enjoy immediate, accessible police services at the expense of those who are not digitally connected. In south Tel Aviv, with its large population of immigrants and people with drug addiction and houselessness, the line between the connected and disconnected is conspicuous. The police who are determined to serve the community (Herbert 2009; Hughes 2006; Hughes and Rowe 2007) find themselves in uncharted territories of community-police relations mediated by digital platforms. They reflect upon their moral obligation to the various populations in the conflicted gentrified area. The broadest criticism from the police targets urban politics and illuminates an unspoken dynamic regarding the gentrification of high-crime neighborhoods where unwanted phenomena (such as prostitution, drug trafficking and houselessness) are centralized. This process, which undermines previous spatial arrangements that have economic, moral and functional value for the city, evokes conflicting desires and interests. Police are expected to reduce crime, displace unwanted populations, and make the area safer for newcomers. Simultaneously, they must prevent crime and incivilities from spreading into other areas. Therefore, their reflection exposes how the gentrification of a high-crime neighborhood incites political struggle and spatial negotiations. Maneuvering among the contradicting forces, police are wondering about their actual role in this space.Hence, this paper makes three key arguments: 1. Gentrifying a high-crime neighborhood triggers a collision of urban forces and spatial negotiations amid users, institutions, and areas in the city. 2. Police play an important but complicated role in this process and must operate intensive borderwork on various scales, with technology becoming a tool for internal, microgeographical social borderwork. 3. Policing gentrification raises reflexivity among officers regarding their profession, social obligation and position in urban politics.The final discussion suggests that the role of police in spaces undergoing gentrification is to police temporality to mediate between the existing space and the future space, perform governmental engagement, maintain order and police the community. However, considering the neoliberal development paradigm that pushes social problems elsewhere (Atkinson 2003; Smith 1996) and omit long-term solutions that extend beyond policing, police can bring limited change. Their role is to bear the contradictions and tensions until urban renewal can take full effect and “magically” reduce crime and displace unwanted populations.The paper continues as follows: Part 1 reviews the literature on gentrification and policing and the potential contributions from qualitative research conducted with police. Part 2 presents the empirical context of South Tel Aviv and presents data on urban renewal and policing. It also reviews the methodology of the study. Part 3 divides the findings into three parts: 3.1 Reflecting on police practices: situational crime prevention on the way to nowhere; 3.2 Reflecting on the social and moral obligations of the police: “Have we become the private police of the newcomers?” Digitalization and coalitions of power; 3.3 Reflecting on the police force's role in urban politics: “do they truly want a win here?” Part 4 concludes the paper by discussing the concept of policing temporality.Part 1: Perspectives on the Intersection Between Gentrification and PolicingIn the literature, it is widely claimed that police activity increases in spaces that are currently undergoing gentrification. Past research suggests various complementary explanations for this phenomenon: 1. Spaces that undergo urban renewal tend to displace populations, behaviors and uses that do not match the neoliberal standard of the renewed area, and the police are responsible for their displacement. 2. Newcomers, predominantly White and middle class, demand more police services and are therefore responsible for the intensification of policing 3. The authorities invest in policing to both signify and enable economic development.These explanations differ in their focus. The first can be described as moral-economic, emphasizing the relation between the capitalization of urban spaces and normativity. Urban revitalization transforms previously diverse and complex urban areas into ordered or orderly urban realms (Hubbard 1999) that are well suited for capital investment, consumerism, tourism and the middle classes (Peršak and Di Ronco 2018). Those who are unable to cope with the demands of the market, fail to fit into the grand design, or are perceived as a threat or an obstacle find themselves marginalized (Aalbers 2011; Hubbard 1999; Bauman 1993). Members of the community considers the relegation of weaker groups to less desired environments for the advancement of capitalism as a virtuous action, which realizes a morally superior setup (Sibley 1995). The mixing of social groups and diverse activities in space carries the threat of contamination and a challenge to hegemonic values (Sibley 1995: 39). The state transforms its actions toward these groups from care into repression and transfers them from the hands of the social worker into the hands of police (Smith 1996). The second explanation focuses on the social dimension and emphasizes both the active and passive role of the new residents in the intensification of policing. Sharp's (2014) postindustrial policing hypothesis claims that the police tactics deployed in urban spaces that experience “revitalization” are aimed at adapting the living environment to populations with higher capital (tourists and residents). Adopting their racialized and class-based perceptions of crime, safety, and disorder (Laniyonu 2018; Sharp 2014; Peršak and Di Ronco 2018). The result is that order-maintenance policing focuses on social control rather than law enforcement functions (Sharp 2014; Neocleous 2000). Other researchers have empirically shown how new residents, mostly White and middle class, actively call the police more often, especially regarding quality-of-life offenses that are allegedly conducted by non-White people, such as disorderly conduct, property damage, and trespassing (Beck 2020; Bloch and Meyer 2019). Respectively, long-term residents report that they experience more stop-and-arrests by the police during gentrification (Freeman 2011; Newberry 2021; Maharawal 2017; Fagan et al. 2009). The third explanation, by Beck (2020), suggests a more political-economic understanding of the police-gentrification link. He turns the focus on city elites who pave the way for the real estate market by investing and expanding police activity in the designated areas. His thesis is that “development-directed policing” is aimed at “cleaning up” neighborhoods marked for upscaling through increased discretionary arrests like those for drug possession (Beck 2020: 251–252). Indeed, gentrification is driven by consumers, the state, the authorities, city elites, and new residents. It can be motivated by moral, economic, racial, or social concerns—either way, the process of gentrification is entangled with police involvement. Moreover, it reorients the police agenda to focus on particular behaviors and populations (Laniyonu 2018: 899).