Publication date: 1 March 2027

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806552849

Number of illustrations: 39

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Fighting to Stay Put

Q: What is "Fighting to Stay Put" about?

Fighting to Stay Put shows how grassroots communities and their coalitions collectively reclaim their spaces and places, forestall gentrification and resist displacement. Marginalized residents work together with academics, community organizations, workers’ unions, political parties and elected officials against pro-gentrification policies and planning efforts to reclaim the right to stay put in secure affordable housing. While there have been cross-class coalitions working on these issues for some time, the accounts featured in this book suggest that gentrification no longer simply pits the working class against the middle class. The chapters showcase different strategies employed to claim the right to ‘stay put’ in local neighbourhoods, not only by mobilizing people and community but also through memory, art, law, documentaries and a caravan. Each local example is presented through the lens of a specific strategy of struggle, analyzing what has worked and what has not worked. This structure allows readers to focus on the local evolution of the strategy, allowing other activists to adopt, in full or part, the specific strategy in their local context. The examples allow readers to compare the implications, strengths, contradictions and shortcomings of each of the strategies illustrated, and to consider how strategies emerge from local context and global dynamics.

Learning from the global struggle against gentrification and displacement

Loretta Lees (Editor), Japonica Brown-Saracino (Editor), Stefano Portelli (Editor), Kenton Card (Editor)

Series: Engaging Communities in City-making

Fighting to Stay Put shows how grassroots communities and their coalitions collectively reclaim their spaces and places, forestall gentrification and resist displacement. Marginalized residents work together with academics, community organizations, workers’ unions, political parties and elected officials against pro-gentrification policies and planning efforts to reclaim the right to stay put in secure affordable housing. While there have been cross-class coalitions working on these issues for some time, the accounts featured in this book suggest that gentrification no longer simply pits the working class against the middle class.

The chapters showcase different strategies employed to claim the right to ‘stay put’ in local neighbourhoods, not only by mobilizing people and community but also through memory, art, law, documentaries and a caravan. Each local example is presented through the lens of a specific strategy of struggle, analyzing what has worked and what has not worked. This structure allows readers to focus on the local evolution of the strategy, allowing other activists to adopt, in full or part, the specific strategy in their local context. The examples allow readers to compare the implications, strengths, contradictions and shortcomings of each of the strategies illustrated, and to consider how strategies emerge from local context and global dynamics.

List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction
Loretta Lees, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Stefano Portelli and Kenton Card

2 London, UK: the 35% Campaign
Jerry Flynn interviewed by Loretta Lees

3 Washington DC, USA: Viet Place Collective – ethnic enclaves facing erasure
Trúc My Nguyễn, Valerie Nguyễn and friend

4 Boston, USA: The East Boston Community Development Corporation
Al Calderelli interviewed by Loretta Lees

5 Nairobi, Kenya: The fight for the Ziwani Estate
Daniel Manyasi, Single Mothers’ Association of Kenya and Loretta Lees

6 Lisbon, Portugal: housing struggles in Lisbon, 2005-2025
Rita Silva and Eduardo Ascensão

7 São Paulo, Brazil: Fundo Imobiliário Comunitário para Aluguel (FICA) and the creation of a social landlord in São Paulo, Brazil
Renato Cymbalista

8 Hastings, UK: Hastings Commons
Jess Steele interviewed by Loretta Lees

9 Bangkok, Thailand: from sacred ground to battleground: a shrine, a university, and the fight for Bangkok’s soul
Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, Settanant Thanakitkoses, Pongwarin Sarachai and Phumiyot Lapnarongchai

10 Edinburgh, Scotland: fighting gentrification without using the word? Neighbourhood organizing and the ‘Save Jock’s Lodge’ campaign in Edinburgh, Scotland
Hamish Kallin with Kirsty Pattison

11 Louisville, USA: the passing of an anti-displacement ordinance and associated anti-displacement assessment tool
Jessica Bellamy and Jecorey Arthur interviewed by Japonica Brown-Saracino

12 Durban, South Africa: Abahlali baseMjondolo: a ‘shack’ dweller’s fight against displacement
S’bu Zikode interviewed by Stefano Portelli

13 Delhi, India: the right to stay put in Basti
Aakanksha Badkur interviewed by Loretta Lees

14 Boston, USA: creating housing that is affordable in perpetuity
John Smith and Rene Mardones – the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) – interviewed by Japonica Brown-Saracino

15 Barcelona, Spain: No Marxem! Struggles to remain in a financialized metropolis
Carla Rivera, Roger Ramírez and Stefano Portelli

16 Berlin, Germany: reflecting on the state of the tenant movement in Berlin
Matthias Bernt, interviewed by Kenton Card with Rossella Asja Lucrezia Ferro

17 Conclusion
Loretta Lees, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Stefano Portelli and Kenton Card

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806552849

Number of illustrations: 39

Publication date: 01 March 2027

PDF ISBN: 9781806552849

Paperback ISBN: 9781806552832

Loretta Lees (Editor)

Loretta Lees is Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University. She is an international expert on gentrification and displacement. She is a long-time Scholar-Activist who has supported communities facing displacement in cities across Europe and the US by collating and co-producing (mapping and measuring) evidence of displacement, being an expert witness in public inquiries, and developing anti-displacement toolkits and tools, etc. In 2022 she was awarded the Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association for this work. Before moving to Boston four years ago, she was Chair of the London Housing Panel 2020-22 supporting diverse communities’ input into Greater London Authority housing policy and practice.

Japonica Brown-Saracino (Editor)

Japonica Brown-Saracino is Professor of Sociology & WGS at Boston University, where she also serves as Faculty Fellow at the Initiative on Cities. She is the author of A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity (Chicago 2010) which won the 2010-11 Urban Affairs Association Best Book Award and How Places Make Us (Chicago 2018), as well as editor of The Gentrification Debates (Routledge 2010). Her newest book is, The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea (Princeton 2026).

Stefano Portelli (Editor)

Stefano Portelli is Senior Researcher for Madrid's UNED Department of Sociology and Political Sciences and a housing activist and researcher in urban anthropology. He is an affiliate to Barcelona's Observatory of Anthropology of Urban Conflict (OACU) and has worked extensively on the social consequences of urban transformations and evictions. He is the author of La ciudad horizontal (2015) about the demolition of a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona, and Il diritto di restare (2024) about slum clearance in Rome. He is currently performing research on the urban changes associated with the World Cup of 2030 in Morocco.

Kenton Card (Editor)

Kenton Card is a community organizer, filmmaker and Assistant Professor at San José State University. He received the 2024 Janet Smith Emerging Activist Scholar Research Award from the Urban Affairs Association. Kenton's research examines housing policy, with expertise in tenant rights, social movements and anti-displacement planning. And he directed the award-winning film Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore for the Antipode Foundation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is "Fighting to Stay Put" about?

Fighting to Stay Put shows how grassroots communities and their coalitions collectively reclaim their spaces and places, forestall gentrification and resist displacement. Marginalized residents work together with academics, community organizations, workers’ unions, political parties and elected officials against pro-gentrification policies and planning efforts to reclaim the right to stay put in secure affordable housing. While there have been cross-class coalitions working on these issues for some time, the accounts featured in this book suggest that gentrification no longer simply pits the working class against the middle class.

The chapters showcase different strategies employed to claim the right to ‘stay put’ in local neighbourhoods, not only by mobilizing people and community but also through memory, art, law, documentaries and a caravan. Each local example is presented through the lens of a specific strategy of struggle, analyzing what has worked and what has not worked. This structure allows readers to focus on the local evolution of the strategy, allowing other activists to adopt, in full or part, the specific strategy in their local context. The examples allow readers to compare the implications, strengths, contradictions and shortcomings of each of the strategies illustrated, and to consider how strategies emerge from local context and global dynamics.

Who edited "Fighting to Stay Put"?

"Fighting to Stay Put" was edited by Loretta Lees, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Stefano Portelli and Kenton Card.

Loretta Lees is Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University. She is an international expert on gentrification and displacement. She is a long-time Scholar-Activist who has supported communities facing displacement in cities across Europe and the US by collating and co-producing (mapping and measuring) evidence of displacement, being an expert witness in public inquiries, and developing anti-displacement toolkits and tools, etc. In 2022 she was awarded the Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association for this work. Before moving to Boston four years ago, she was Chair of the London Housing Panel 2020-22 supporting diverse communities’ input into Greater London Authority housing policy and practice.

Japonica Brown-Saracino is Professor of Sociology & WGS at Boston University, where she also serves as Faculty Fellow at the Initiative on Cities. She is the author of A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity (Chicago 2010) which won the 2010-11 Urban Affairs Association Best Book Award and How Places Make Us (Chicago 2018), as well as editor of The Gentrification Debates (Routledge 2010). Her newest book is, The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea (Princeton 2026).

Stefano Portelli is Senior Researcher for Madrid's UNED Department of Sociology and Political Sciences and a housing activist and researcher in urban anthropology. He is an affiliate to Barcelona's Observatory of Anthropology of Urban Conflict (OACU) and has worked extensively on the social consequences of urban transformations and evictions. He is the author of La ciudad horizontal (2015) about the demolition of a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona, and Il diritto di restare (2024) about slum clearance in Rome. He is currently performing research on the urban changes associated with the World Cup of 2030 in Morocco.

Kenton Card is a community organizer, filmmaker and Assistant Professor at San José State University. He received the 2024 Janet Smith Emerging Activist Scholar Research Award from the Urban Affairs Association. Kenton's research examines housing policy, with expertise in tenant rights, social movements and anti-displacement planning. And he directed the award-winning film Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore for the Antipode Foundation.

Is "Fighting to Stay Put" part of a series?

Yes, "Fighting to Stay Put" is part of the "Engaging Communities in City-making" series.

This series contributes to the urgent need for creativity and rigour in producing and sharing knowledge at the interface of urban communities and universities to support more sustainable, just and resilient cities. It aims to amplify community voices in scholarly publishing about the built environment, and encourages different models of authorship to reflect research and pedagogy that is co-produced with urban communities. It includes work that engages with the theory and practice of community engagement in processes and structures of city-making. The series will reflect diverse urban communities in its authorship, topics and geographical range.

Is "Fighting to Stay Put" available Open Access?

Yes, "Fighting to Stay Put" is published Open Access. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

What is the Table of Contents for "Fighting to Stay Put"?

List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction
Loretta Lees, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Stefano Portelli and Kenton Card

2 London, UK: the 35% Campaign
Jerry Flynn interviewed by Loretta Lees

3 Washington DC, USA: Viet Place Collective - ethnic enclaves facing erasure
Trúc My Nguyễn, Valerie Nguyễn and friend