1992/01/01 by Chris Hamnett · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Urban Planning and Governance #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Geographies of human-animal interactions
paper · doi:10.2307/622642
openalex publication_date 1992/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
In his reply to my paper 'The Blind Men and the Elephant', Neil Smith has, with the exception of a few rather tough adjectives to describe my position and presumed politics, mounted an interesting defence of his position and an attack on what he alleges to be mine. This response focuses on the arguments not the adjectives. Smith's argument is in two halves. The first half consists of a defence of his position. This consists partly of the predictable claim that I have misrepresented his position or attacked straw arguments, and partly of innocent protestations that he cannot see what all the fuss is about. He claims that I have created a false dichotomy where none exists, that he has several key things in common with David Ley and that he has already agreed with my previous criticisms. The thrust of this defence is that I am just kicking up dust and clouding the real issues. I disagree. The second part of Smith's argument is the more interesting, and the more aggressive. He claims that I make a significant addition to the literature, namely the most explicit and most polemical assertion of philosophical individualism vis-a-vis gentrification. The main thrust of my comments will be on the central question raised by Smith of individualism versus social collectivities in explanation. But first I will deal with Smith's defence. He argues first that my discussion is dated and takes its ground on the cruder state of the debate 10 years ago, adding little, except ideologically to my earlier 1984 assessment. I disagree. The 1984 assessment dealt only in part with Smith's work and then solely with his early papers. One purpose of my 1991 paper was to trace the development of Smith's thinking in order to demonstrate his continuing antipathy to individual agency and to show that he still regards the rent gap as the keystone to the explanation of gentrification. As to his argument that I ignore the contribution of other writers and perspectives, this is simply wrong. My paper made considerable reference to the valuable work of Beauregard, Mullins, Rose and others.