gentrification

• author:
  Ruth Glass

• publication:
  Ruth GlassAspects of Changein London University Centre for Urban Studies (editor)London: Aspects of ChangeMacGibbon and Kee, London 1964.

• definition:
  The term gentrification is attributed to Ruth Glass, who described a phenomenon occurring in London in the early 1960's. Shabby, working class mews were acquired by middle-class people, who converted them to elegant and expensive homes. Because the word gentry implies a land-owning aristocracy, gentrification may be etymologically inappropriate. Nevertheless, it has acquired widespread and popular acceptance. Gentrification occurs when there is a substantial replace ment of a neighborhood's residents with newcomers who are of higher income and who, having acquired homes cheaply, renovate them and upgrade the neighborhood (Holcomb and Beauregard, 1981). The term gentrification is commonly used to refer to changes in the composition of the neighborhood population, resulting in new social organizational patterns (Palen and London, 1984).

  related links:
  http://www.verygood.f9.co.uk/gentweb/index.html
  (getrification web: Excellent website on gentrification)
  http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/research/facts/sp00s1.html
  (gentrification essay: )
  
  

  • dictionary definition:
    Main Entry: gen·tri·fi·ca·tionPronunciation: "jen-tr&-f&-'kA-sh&nFunction: nounDate: 1964: the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces earlier usually poorer residents

  • echo:
    The coining of the term gentrification is attributed to sociologist Ruth Glass who used it to describe the influx of middle class Londoners into working class neighborhoods resulting in a fundamental change in the character of the neighborhood. Today, the term gentrification still denotes an undesired change in neighborhood character, but the causes are perceived more broadly. A candidate for Mayor of San Francisco recently described gentrification in non-residential terms, bemoaning major chain stores moving into neighborhoods and displacing local businesses.

  • plus:
    "gentrify": convert (a working-class or inner-city district etc.) into an area of middle-class residence. gentrification/gentrifier- Oxford English Dictionary (1993). "gentrify, -fied, -fying": to convert (an aging area in a city) into a more affluent middle-class neighborhood, as by remodeling dwellings, resulting in increased property values and in displacement of the poor. gentrification - Webster's Dictionary of the American Language (1988). "Simultaneously a physical, economic, social and cultural phenomenon, gentrification commonly involves the invasion by middle-class or higher-income groups of previously working-class neighbourhoods or multi-occupied 'twilight areas' and the replacement or displacement of many of the original occupants." - Chris Hamnett (1984) "The Village can increasingly be described as a middle- to upper middle-class oasis. It is at present beset by the forces of gentrification, with developers, speculators, and more privileged classes gradually buying up properties inhabited by less well-off people of diverse backgrounds. Gambling on a steady rise in property values, many old and new residents hope the area will become 'hot', trendy, and expensive." - Elijah Anderson (1990). "Gentrification is the process...by which poor and working-class neighborhoods in the inner city are refurbished by an influx of private capital and middle-class homebuyers and renters....a dramatic yet unpredicted reversal of what most twentieth-century urban theories had been predicting as the fate of the central and inner-city." - Neil Smith (1996)

  • bibliography:
    Abu-Lughod, J. (ed)(1994) From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York's Lower East Side (Blackwell, Oxford).*Anderson, E. (1990) Streetwise: Race, Class and Change in an Urban Community (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).Badcock, B. (1989) "Smith's rent-gap hypothesis: an Australian view", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 79, pp125-145.Badcock, B. (1993) "Notwithstanding the exaggerated claims, residential revitalization really is changing the form of some Western cities: a response to Bourne", Urban Studies 30 (1), pp191-195.*Barry, J. and Derevlany, J. (eds) (1987) Yuppies invade my house at dinnertime: a tale of brunch, bombs and gentrification in an American city (Big River Publishing: Hoboken, NJ.). Beauregard, R. (1985) "Politics, ideology and theories of gentrification", Journal of Urban Affairs 7 pp51-62.Beauregard, R. (1986) "The chaos and complexity of gentrification", in N.Smith and P.Williams (eds) Gentrification of the City (Unwin Hyman, London).*Bondi, L. (1991) "Gender divisions and gentrification: a critique", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16 (2) pp190-198.Bondi, L. (1998) "Sexing the City", in R. Fincher and J.M. Jacobs (eds) Cities of Difference (Guilford, New York).Bondi, L. (1999) "Gender, class and gentrification: enriching the debate", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17 (3) pp261-282.Bourne, L. (1993) "The demise of gentrification? A commentary and prospective view", Urban Geography 14 (1), pp95-107.*Bridge, G. (1995) "The space for class? On class analysis in the study for gentrification", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20 (2) pp236-247.Butler, T. and Hamnett, C. (1994) "Gentrification, class and gender: some comments on Warde's gentrification as consumption", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12 pp477-493.*Butler, T. (1997) Gentrification and the Middle Classes (Ashgate, Aldershot).*Carpenter, J. and Lees, L. (1995) "Gentrification in New York, London and Paris: an international comparison", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19 (2) pp286-303.Castells, M. (1983) The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Edward Arnold, London).Caulfield, J. (1989) "Gentrification and desire", Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 26 (4) pp617-632. *Caulfield, J. (1994) City Form and Everyday Life: Toronto's gentrification and critical social practice (University of Toronto Press, Toronto)Clark, E. (1988) "The rent-gap and transformation of the built environment: case studies in Malmo 1860-1985", Geografiska Annaler 70B, pp241-254.Cordova, T. (1991) "Community intervention efforts to oppose gentrification" in P.Nyden and W. Wiewel (eds.) Challenging Uneven Development (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick).Cybriwsky, R., Ley, D. and Western, J. (1986) "The political and social construction of revitalized neighborhoods: Society Hill, Philadelphia, and False Creek, Vancouver", in N. Smith and P. Williams (eds) Gentrification of the City (Unwin Hyman, London) pp92-120.Eade, J. and Mele, C. (1998) "The Eastern Promise of New York and London", Rising East 1 (3), pp52-73.*Glass, R. (1964) "Aspects of Change", in Centre for Urban Studies (ed) London: Aspects of Change (MacGibbon and Kee, London).Hamnett, C. (1973) "Improvement grants as an indicator of gentrification in inner London", Area 5, pp252-261.Hamnett, C. (1984) "Gentrification and residential location theory: a review and assessment", in D. Herbert and R.J.Johnston (eds) Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in Research and Applications (Wiley and Sons, New York).*Hamnett, C. (1991) "The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16 (2) pp173-189.Hamnett, C. (1992) "Gentrifiers or lemmings? A response to Neil Smith", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17 (1) pp116-119.Hamnett, C. and Randolph, B. (1984) "The role of landlord disinvestment in housing market transformation: an analysis of the flat break-up market in central London", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 9, pp259-279.Hamnett, C. and Williams, P. (1980) "Social change in London: a study of gentrification", Urban Affairs Quarterly 15 (4) pp469-487.*Jager, M. (1986) "Class definition and the aesthetics of gentrification: Victoriana in Melbourne", in N.Smith and P.Williams (eds) Gentrification of the City (Unwin Hyman, London).Knopp, L. (1990) "Exploiting the rent gap: the theoretical significance of using illegal appraisal schemes to encourage gentrification in New Orleans", Urban Geography 11, pp48-64.Lees, L. (1994a) "Gentrification in London and New York: an Atlantic gap?", Housing Studies 9 (2) pp199-217.*Lees, L. (1994b) "Rethinking gentrification: beyond the positions of economics or culture", Progress in Human Geography 18 (2) pp137-150.Lees, L. and Bondi, L. (1995) "De/gentrification and economic recession: the case of New York City", Urban Geography 16 pp234-253.Lees, L. (1996) "In the pursuit of difference: representations of gentrification", Environment and Planning A, 28 pp453-470.Lees, L. (1999) "The weaving of gentrification discourse and the boundaries of the gentrification community", Enviroment and Planning D: Society and Space 17 pp127-132.Lees, L. (2000) "A Re-appraisal of gentrification: towards a geography of gentrification", Progress in Human Geography, 24:3.*Ley, D. (1980) "Liberal ideology and the post-industrial city", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70 pp.238-258.Ley, D. (1986) "Alternative explanations for inner-city gentrification: a Canadian assessment", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76 (4), pp521-535.Ley, D. (1987) "The rent-gap revisited", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 pp465-468.Ley, D. (1993) "Gentrification in recession: social change in six Canadian inner-cities, 1981-1986", Urban Geography 13 (3), pp.230-256.*Ley, D. (1996) The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City (Oxford University Press, Oxford).Lyons, M. (1996) "Employment, feminisation and gentrification in London 1981-93", Environment and Planning A 28, pp341-356.Marcuse, P. (1993) "What's so new about divided cities?", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 17 (3), pp.355-65.Mills, C. (1988) "Life on the upslope: the postmodern landscape of gentrification", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6 pp169-189.*Munt, I. (1987) "Economic restructuring, culture, and gentrification: a case study in Battersea, London", Environment and Planning A 19 pp1175-1197.Palen, J. and London, B. (eds) (1984) Gentrification, Displacement and Neighbourhood Revitalisation (State Univ. of New York Press, Albany).Raban, J. (1974) Soft City (Verso, London).Redfern, P. (1997a) "A new look at gentrification: 1. gentrification and domestic technologies", Environment and Planning A 29 pp1275-1296.Redfern, P. (1997b) "A new look at gentrification: 2. a model of gentrification", Environment and Planning A 29 pp1335-1354. Rose, D. (1984) "Rethinking gentrification: beyond the uneven development of Marxist urban theory", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1 pp47-74. Rothenberg, T. (1995) "And she told two friends: lesbians creating urban social space", in D. Bell and G. Valentine (eds) Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities (Routledge, London) pp165-181.*Smith, N. (1979) "Toward a theory of gentrification; a back to the city movement by capital not people", Journal of the American Planning Association 45, pp538-548.Smith, N. (1986) "Gentrification, the frontier and the restructuring of urban space", in N. Smith and P. Williams (eds) Gentrification of the City (Unwin Hyman, London) pp15-34.Smith, N. (1987a) "Of yuppies and housing: gentrification, social restructuring and the urban dream", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 5 pp151-172.Smith, N. (1987b) "Gentrification and the rent-gap", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (3) pp462-465.Smith, N. (1992) "Blind man’s buff, or Hamnett’s philosophical individualism in search of gentrification?", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17 (1) pp110-115.Smith, N. (1993) "Homeless/global: scaling places", in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, L. Tickner (eds) Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (Routledge, London) pp87-119.*Smith, N. (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (Routledge, London and New York).Smith, N. and DeFilippis, J. (1999) "The reassertion of economics: 1990s gentrification in the Lower East Side", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23 pp638-653.Stanziola, J. (1999) Arts, Government and Community Revitalization (Ashgate, Aldershot).*Taylor, M. (1992) "Can you go home again? Black gentrification and the dilemma of difference", Berkeley Journal of Sociology 37, pp121-138.van Weesep, J. and Musterd, S. (eds) (1991) Urban Housing for the Better-Off : Gentrification in Europe (Stedelijke Netwerken, Utrecht).*van Weesep, J. (1994) "Gentrification as a research frontier", Progress in Human Geography 18 (1), pp74-83.Warde, A. (1991) "Gentrification as consumption: issues of class and gender", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9 pp223-232.Williams, P. (1986) "Class constitution through spatial reconstruction? A re-evaluation of gentrification in Australia, Britain and the United States", in N.Smith and P.Williams (eds) Gentrification of the City (Unwin Hyman, London).Wyly, E. and Hammel, D. (1999) Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: urban policy and the resurgence of gentrification, unpublished paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Honolulu, HI.*Zukin, S. (1989) Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick).GentrificationWeb: Home / Back / Next--------------------------------------------------------------------------------GentrificationWeb created by Tom Slater, thomas.slater@kcl.ac.uk go to King's College London Geography Department last modified: March 2000

• bibliographical categories:
  Cities and towns--GrowthLondon (England)

• hard cover:
  London University Centre for Urban Studies (editor)London: Aspects of ChangeMacGibbon and Kee, London 1964.

• publisher:
  MacGibbon and Kee

• site of publication:
  London

• year of publication:
  1964