The Precarious City

While global urban discourse remains dominated by the spectacular, high-rise gentrification of central city areas, this book aims to deepen our understanding of the quiet, mundane redevelopments that transform the inner-city neighborhoods of the Global East. Exploring this "shadow of gentrification," it provides a rich empirical analysis of Osaka, Japan—a primary example of emerging neoliberalism playing out across an inner-city shaped by the developmental state. Despite departing from conventional gentrification, the analysis focuses on social change and capital reinvestment. Through evidence from extensive field research and interviews, it traces three distinct trajectories of neighborhood change: retro renovation driven by small businesses in Nakazaki; art-led renovation facilitated by a local landlord in Kitakagaya; and welfare-led renovation triggered by livelihood protection amendments in Northwest Nishinari. The analysis reveals a nascent “precarious city,” in which the working class is replaced by populations marked by precarity and fragmentation, standing outside the societal project of the developmental state. Ultimately, this book argues for embracing the trajectories of neighborhood change in the Global East, while treating gentrification as a conceptual vanishing point to guide analyses that sometimes lead into the spotlight, and sometimes into the shadow of gentrification.