ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the state of gentrification has always been extra-economic. One particular criticism of Smith's work, delivered courtesy of Asher Ghertner, seeks to challenge the way that gentrification 'has come to operate as an umbrella term for a general outcome of class transformation, regardless of its widely divergent underlying causes and implications'. An investigation into the way in which gentrification lay at the heart of the Waterfront Edinburgh project necessitates an investigation into state power and the multiple ways in which gentrification is internalised as a governmental strategy. Challenging the supposed 'universalism' of Western theory is a vital political challenge, but if claims to difference are grounded in the notion that extra-economic force is alien to gentrification in 'the West'. The idea of 'extra-economic force' derives from Marx's discussion of 'so-called primitive accumulation'. The extra-economic force defines the state's role in gentrification, to create new opportunities for capital investment where 'the market' itself is unable to do so.
