Inclusive gentrification? Reproducing logics of exclusion in strategies for inclusive urban planning

Purpose The authors investigate two contrasting, yet mutually constitutive strategies for regulating open drug scenes in the city of Aarhus, Denmark: A strategy of dispersing marginalized substance users from the inner city, and a simultaneous strategy of inclusion in a new, gentrifying neighbourhood. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply a multi-temporal ethnography approach, including data from studies dating back to 2002. This enables us to scrutinize reconfigurations of processes of exclusion and inclusion in urban city life based on studies that in different ways feed into the broader picture of how socially marginalized citizens are included and excluded in urban space. Findings The municipality of Aarhus sways between strategies of dispersion and exclusion and those of inclusion of marginalized citizens. Taken together, these strategies constitute a “messy middle ground” (May and Cloke, 2014) in responses to the street people rather than either clear-cut punitive or supportive strategies. Finally, we point to the limit of inclusion in more recent strategies aimed at including marginalized citizens in urban planning of a new, gentrifying neighbourhood. Originality/value The article builds on studies that in critical engagement with the dominating focus on punitive or revanchist approaches to regulation of homeless citizens' presence in urban space have shown how such regulating practices are rarely punishing alone. We contribute to this literature by showing how seemingly contradictory attempts to exclude, disperse and include socially marginalized citizens in different urban settings are relational rather than in outright opposition. In continuation of this, we show how dispersal strategies both depend on and are legitimized by the promotion of alternative and more inclusive settings elsewhere.