Urban makeovers,homeless encampments,and the aesthetics of displacement

ABSTRACT

This paper brings together geographic literature on homelessness and theories of aesthetics to analyse how city beautification projects in contemporary American cities promote the displacement of homelessness. Based on research conducted in Fresno, California, I argue that the seemingly innocuous realm of aesthetics often undergirds anti-homeless politics. In Fresno, officials sought to create a visual landscape that was conducive to middle-class consumption and leisure, such that the project of building a desirable city was deeply influenced by market pressures. In turn, homeless encampments were framed as unpleasant objects that must be removed to make way for economic opportunities. Efforts to reinforce this ‘live play work’ aesthetic resulted in a politics of displacement and criminalisation. Yet people who resided in encampments championed an alternative aesthetic practice grounded in reuse, survival and collective appropriation of urban space. Thus, the example of Fresno shows that aesthetic norms not only reinforce revanchist politics, but simultaneously present the possibility of resistance.