HC15 - Gentrification

How does Burgess see neighbourhood change?

Change in ethnic sense

Invasion & succession

How does Hoyt see neighbourhood change?

Change in socioeconomic sense

Filtering process

Relocation chains

Explain the filtering process (Hoyt)

Housing units “filter down” the social hierarchy over time, becoming accessible to lower-income households as they age and depreciate in value.

Gentrification ≠ Filtering Process, explain?

Gentrification = higher income moving in, lower income moving out

Filtering Process = higher income moving out, lower-income moving in

Explain Gale’s stage development model

sees gentrification as a spontaneous process with multiple phases where certain groups move in:

1. disinvestment: labourers and low-income

2. risk oblivious: pioneers

3. risk prone: higher educated

4. risk averse: luxury condos built

What’s the critique on Gale’s stage development model

Gale sees gentrification as a natural, evolutionary process

What are 2 different perspectives on gentrification?

1. class based & demographic approach

• sees it as a demand-driven process

• importance of consumption patterns & lifestyles of ‘new urban middle class’

  2. (political-)economic approach

• focus on investments and return on capital

• rent-gap theory

• gentrification as policy (state-led)

What is the Rent Gap Theory?

Difference between potential rent income and actual value

Developers seek to close this gap

The lower the current value, the higher its potential rental income when reinvesting/redeveloping

What gentrifiying policies are there in Amsterdam?

‘Middenhuur’ and modernisation of housing stock: aimed at attracting more middle-class professionals

National housing policy that promotes owner occupation and private rental sector

How is urban renewal leading to gentrification in Amsterdam?

House market restructuring by demolishing social rent and building ownership & private rent housing

What does ‘Global’ / Planetary Gentrification refer to

A departure from Western understandings of gentrification

Gentrification as a global, yet context-specific phenomenon that transcends urban boundaries

Focused on state and capital, less contingent on middle class tastes

What are the social and spatial effects of gentrification?

Spatial: neighbourhood change/improvement

Social: displacement, unhoming, exclusion

What are the 3 types of displacement?

1. direct: economically or physically

2. indirect: ‘place-based’ / pressure

3. housing market exclusion