what is Urban Gentrification ?

Urban gentrification is 

 “…the metamorphosis of deprived inner-city neighborhoods into new prestigious residential and consumption areas taken up by a new class of highly skilled and highly paid residents, typically business service professionals living in small-sized, non-familial households – that brings displacement of the neighborhood’s initial population”  (Criekingen and Decroly; 2003)

According to Van Criekingen & Decroly (2003): there are three different types of gentrification which are:

 1.  “Yuppification,” -the process of young professionals moving into urban neighborhoods, and emergence of a new middle-class due to activities of commercial and financially high-end activities.

 2.  “Marginal Gentrification” - transient renters or temporary residents who will eventually return to suburbia after they have a family.

3.  “Upgrading and Incumbent Upgrading” achieved through long term where the moderate income residents try to improve their housing and implies little population change.

Simply says, urban gentrification mean the original residents move out from the neighbourhood due to the unaffordable of high urban living cost. And figure below showed how the urban gentrification takes place.

Figure 1: Urban gentrification process.
Source: Janelle Vandergrift (2006)

 

According Bruce London and J. John (1984), there are five causes of urban gentrification.

1. Demographic ecological

• Gentrification occur through the demographics: population, social organization, environment, and technology.
• For example, worker wanted to live in the inner-city where it's more closer to their job place and thus follow by the technology and administrative activity. 

2. Socio-cultural

• This analysis focuses on the changing attitudes, lifestyles, and values of the middle- and upper-middle-class.
• More and more people moving into the cities and becoming more pro-urban where they refuse to live in rural or even suburban areas.

3. Political-economic

• Traditional approach: The public rights laws decrease the vulnerable group moving to the suburbs and rich people moving to the city.
•  Marxist approach: Powerful group neglect the inner city that stated in the policy until a time they become aware that policy changes could generate income.

4. The community-network

• The community lost perspective: the community activity becoming lesser due to technological advances in transportation and communication. The small-scale community is replaced with large-scale, political and social organizations.
• The community saved perspective: revitalise and upgrading neighborhoods will create gentrification of  neighbourhoods that bring to increasing of community activity

5. Social movements

• Focused on the analysis based movements, usually encouraged by leaders or federal government.

 

Figure 2: Causes and consequences of urban gentrification.
Source:  Kamiar Yazdani 2012.

References:

Kamiar Yazdani 2012. Gentrification and regeneration.

Available on: http://www.slideshare.net/Kamiar_y/gentrification-and-regeneration

Janelle Vandergrift 2006.Gentrification and Displacement. “Urban Altruism” | Calvin College.

Bruce London and J. John Palen 1984. Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Van Criekingen, M., & Decroly, J. 2003. Revisiting the Diversity of Gentrification: Neighborhood Renewal Processes in Brussels and Montreal. Urban Studies.

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