Stories

What communities did, what held and what did not. These stories are not a ranking.

Communities that held

Brixton: maintaining a community presence

Black British residents organised around housing, archives and local economic life while displacement pressure continued.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out

Roots · Heritage · Livelihood

District Six: resistance, removal and memory

Residents resisted removal; the state removed them anyway. Museum work, oral histories and land claims maintained connections afterwards.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out

Roots · Heritage · Livelihood

Harlem: culture and the right to remain

Residents organised for housing and cultural continuity as Harlem became less affordable to the community associated with its cultural history.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out

Roots · Heritage · Livelihood

Korail: organising to stay

Residents and rights organisations sought tenure protection through legal action, but court orders did not prevent every demolition.

Pushed out · Squeezed out

Roots · Livelihood

Kreuzberg: from exclusion to representation

Turkish-German residents organised for citizenship and political representation. Today's rent pressure affects all working-class residents.

Worn down · Pushed out

Voice · Roots

Lyari: rebuilding community life

Residents described displacement during gang violence and fragile improvements in security and daily life by 2018.

Pushed out · Squeezed out · Silenced

Roots · Livelihood · Backbone

Roma in Europe: organising against exclusion

Roma were targeted for genocide under Nazi rule. Today the pressure is structural exclusion, not killing.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945; FRA reports (2022, 2025) on contemporary exclusion.

Pushed out · Squeezed out · Worn down

Roots · Livelihood · Voice

Wales: bringing a language back

Welsh speakers built language education, cultural institutions and political representation, while housing and economic pressures remained.

Written out · Pushed out · Squeezed out

Heritage · Roots · Livelihood

Under acute pressure

Kashmir: since August 2019

Since August 2019: autonomy revoked, mainstream political leaders detained, high-speed internet cut until 2021, and new residency rules.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced

Palestine: displacement and the Gaza war

UN and human rights reporting documented destruction of education, famine, surveillance, detention and deaths of journalists during the Gaza war and occupation.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced

Rohingya: expulsion, statelessness and exile

The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (2018) concluded there was sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior Myanmar military officials for genocide. The case brought by The Gambia at the International Court of Justice is ongoing; merits hearings took place in January 2026.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced

Sheikh Jarrah: court-ordered evictions

Court-ordered evictions of Palestinian families, based on property claims Palestinians cannot make in return.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced

Sudan: since April 2023

All five pressures in the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, with Darfur's non-Arab communities hit hardest.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced

Uyghurs: mass detention and cultural continuity

Detention, coercive labour, surveillance and restrictions on cultural and religious life were documented by journalists and the UN human rights office.

Pushed out · Written out · Squeezed out · Worn down · Silenced