Effects of urban renewal and gentrification on social reconstruction

Abstract

Gentrification is a consequential effect of urban renewal which usually functions towards making a city an economic powerhouse in the process of urban development. Gentrification contains promises of “urban revitalization”; however, this process includes a lot of urban reshuffling, slum clearance, slum relocation, and similar processes which do not benefit low-income citizens. This study examined the current urban development of Sri Lanka, in terms of the architectural strategies used which aid in incomplete gentrification, resulting in social segregation of income classes, religions, and ethnicities. This paper analyses the pros and cons of gentrification from the viewpoint of social reconstruction and social polarization in accordance with different income groups. It discusses the co-dependent relationship between society and architecture, and investigates alternative strategies for gentrification which take the social structure into consideration, through the analysis of the current urbanization of Slave Island. For this purpose, the urban process of Slave Island has been followed by formal and informal interviews with the citizens, non-participant observations, as well as extracting from prior studies from 2006 to 2021, paying special attention to the recent when major development plans were implemented, and started undergoing drastic changes. The results indicated that the urban development strategies implemented are currently causing social segregation in the area. This paper examines the architectural aspects accountable for this type of gentrification, as well as its driving forces for low-income people out of Slave Island, leaving them with no homes or jobs. The urban development proposal and its expected outcomes were weighed against the practical results of urbanization to examine how social segregation happens from an architectural standpoint. Further, it proposed potential development strategies that can be applied for all social groups to benefit mutually from urban development.