Defining Gentrification & On Displacement: Two Essays

Defining Gentrification & On Displacement: Two Essays
  • Added to Catalog: 2017
  • Print Version: Download
This zine was added to our catalog more than 5 years ago. You may want to verify information contained within is still relevant.

This short zine collects two essays that seek to define gentrification and explore the displacement that come with it. While much of popular and even radical discourse focuses on simplistic definitions and formulas to determine what is and isn’t gentrification, this text tries to bring in insights from academic writing on the topic and present it in a way that is easy to understand. Moreover, it attempts to add a measure of nuance that is often missing in these discussions with the hope that a sharper analysis will result in stronger responses.

Excerpt

Despite fifty years of research, popular debates around gentrification tend to focus on an incredibly narrow definition where direct and documented physical displacement must have immediately occurred. We see this all the time in Grand Rapids, where developers, the city government, cheerleaders for gentrification, and others claim that the changes happening in the city are not gentrification because an overly specific conception of the idea is not happening. By focusing on such a narrow definition, it has hidden the gentrification that is happening on a much wider – and increasingly generalized – scale throughout the city.Despite fifty years of research, popular debates around gentrification tend to focus on an incredibly narrow definition where direct and documented physical displacement must have immediately occurred. We see this all the time in Grand Rapids, where developers, the city government, cheerleaders for gentrification, and others claim that the changes happening in the city are not gentrification because an overly specific conception of the idea is not happening. By focusing on such a narrow definition, it has hidden the gentrification that is happening on a much wider – and increasingly generalized – scale throughout the city.

Download

Zines are in PDF format. Choose imposed for printing and reading for reading on your device. The files are hosted on Archive.org, a service that does not log IP addresses.

Share on Social Media

These links are not an endorsement of social media. They are provided for convenience and to help foster the spread of anarchist ideas.