Housing Market Renewal in Liverpool: Locating the Gentrification Debate in History, Context and Evidence

Abstract

This paper places the Housing Market Renewal programme in Liverpool in its historical context, highlighting a mismatch between the supply and demand for housing which has existed for four decades. This disequilibrium produced an environment where successive waves of neighbourhood abandonment occurred from the late 1970s despite significant public policy interventions. The implementation of the Housing Market Renewal programme has stimulated a debate about the extent to which the public sector interventions are leading to the gentrification of poor neighbourhoods. The paper finds that there is no evidence of gentrification in older neighbourhoods, however, inflows of capital rather than middle-class residents have altered the physical development of the city to an extent that the housing choices of all income groups have been affected. The paper concludes that critical gentrification research should take account of historical development and wider housing market change to remain relevant to the debate about the changing social and economic structure of cities.