Talk:Gentrification

Wiki Education assignment: Environmental Justice

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2023 and 21 March 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Mmagana0212.

— Assignment last updated by Mmagana0212 (talk) 18:07, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Something very wrong with this article

This article feels like someone got ahold of it and tried to make it into a Pro-Gentrification Propaganda piece. The last part about taking legal action against the Gentrification groups is a case in point. The first three Paragraphs (?????) are statements of how wonderful (My paraphrase ) Gentrification is. Then the very last line which reads like a throw-away line, something about the Fair Housing Act.

My suggestion is completely delete this so-called Article then try again except this time make it neutral!!! MagnummSerpentinee (talk) 05:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Back when I was studying geography at school and university (1996-2006) gentrification was seen as an almost exclusively positive thing. Seems it has become more and more disliked as time goes on, possibly the meaning of it has changed as gentrification used to mean taking an area out of poverty and crime and making it more liveable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:6388:4F01:55FC:79E:57A5:22A9 (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

> I got the same feeling right away I saw the "pros & cons table" and the very first point in the pros is "reducing crime". I can only hear POC exhaling a very loud sigh. 83.31.236.187 (talk) 12:46, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I've opted to remove that and add more to the crime section. I agree that this article does seem rather one-sided in places (for both sides of the debate). – Isochrone (talk) 17:10, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

There are at least two definitions of gentrification.

What will happen if you do post the three or four definitions that work for gentrification?

They can't go into the definitions, and maybe this is because they cause general social problems with only vague posts online with worse versions of those definitions for the inquisitive kids at every social gathering with brains. At least twice now in ten or twenty year intervals the spread of gentrification definitions has swept suburbs, and it results in no talk about what it is in public in the spaces between.

One is legal and includes investment. One is having so much money everything changes for you. Nowhere will you find complete impunity. You will find a mysterious epidemic spread of disease during and after complaining about impunity; it doesn't work out socially. You will be challenged to identify more than one or two elements in the social arguments/movements around, leading up to and after gentrification. History, loyalty, genetics, service, state planning and everything else factor in so that's what you are actually complaining about, if you ever do decide to complain. Peterlalka (talk) 15:49, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Does this make sense?

"Also, other research has shown that low-income families in gentrifying neighborhoods are less likely to be displaced than in non-gentrifying neighborhoods. A common theory has been that as affluent people move into a poorer neighborhood, housing prices increase as a result, causing poorer people to move out of the neighborhood." I've not edited this section, but these two sentences seem to contradict each other. Saccerzd (talk) 11:29, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that's incorrect and so I've flipped it. – Isochrone (talk) 16:51, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

This flip now misrepresents some of the cited sources. I think we should read "Although a common theory has been that as affluent people move in . . ." The idea is that gentrification (regarded as economic integration / revitalization) might be less likely to cause displacement than areas of concentrated poverty (which might have displacement because of disinvestment, loss of job opportunities, or other push factors like public safety). The confusion arises because some of our sources frame gentrification as a process of demographic turnover that by definition involves displacement.

Leaving this unchanged for now, however, in advance of a rewrite / restructuring I'd like to propose for the article as a whole.

I think the whole article should be divided into two sections: first, a section dealing called "Gentrification as process involving displacement " or something, dealing with sources that follow the original definition by Ruth Glass, and which are understandably very critical; the second called "Gentrification as process distinct from displacement" or "Gentrification as investment and economic integration" dealing with the other set of sources that define the term differently and tend to have a more mixed assessment of the consequences. Recognitor (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I would not be opposed to such a rewrite. In its current state, this article his a jungle of conflicting sources and superfluous information. – Isochrone (talk) 15:51, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Introductory definition

Hi @Thenightaway, you reverted my change to the opening sentence. In hindsight, I agree that some aspects of what I added, particularly "deprived areas", are not requisites for gentrification, but I think the rest was an improvement. What do you think of the following:

Gentrification is the process by which a neighborhood undergoes significant change through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. Often, this involves the displacement of existing, lower-income residents.

This is more similar to the ODE definition, for example. – Isochrone (talk) 07:07, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

The sources in the body do not seem to agree that gentrification leads to displacement. It would misrepresent the body to say that it often does. Thenightaway (talk) 13:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree: I see three definitions involving displacement in the "Definitions" section and there is an entire subsection dedicated to the displacing effects. The lead I have proposed above does not say it always occurs, but it is clearly related to gentrification. Displacement is also mentioned in the vast majority of dictionary definitions. – Isochrone (talk) 14:13, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Further to this, @Thenightaway, the first three sources cited in the lead ([1][2][3]) all mention displacement very explicitly. In the past, there has been debate over whether displacement is truly a side-effect, but most of these were quashed by this 2006 paper (a response to a controversial USA Today article), and modern scholars accept that gentrification is almost always a side-effect (even if there is resistance to it). – Isochrone (talk) 09:41, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, sources mention displacement but do not say that it's an undisputed or common effect of gentrification (which is the change you want to introduce to the article). This is what Vox says in 2021, "Widely viewed as the most pernicious byproduct of gentrification, the evidence that gentrification causes physical displacement is a mixed bag."[4] Thenightaway (talk) 14:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I understand your view. I do, however, disagree with your verdict that the Elgar book is "low-tier press". This is a work that has been written (and edited) by experts, and been well reviewed by experts. I believe it is a valuable resource for this article. I don't think it should be discarded due to it not having been published by Routledge or whatever.

Another issue with most sources for displacement in this article is that it has a very clear focus on the US (as in the one you added). Perhaps this reflects the literature, but it is clear that that section needs to represent more than just statistical studies of American metropolises. – Isochrone (talk) 14:37, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible you could also indicate how you know that the "special feature" is not peer reviewed? The journal statement indicates that all articles are double-anonymised peer reviewed. That article seems to neatly analyse critical viewpoints on the gentrification-displacement relationship. – Isochrone (talk) 14:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Like much work by critical geographers, those books and articles seem completely untethered to actual empirical research, as is shown by the complete absence of citations to the empirical research published in top journals in sociology and economics (which makes these sources unsuited for describing the "state of the literature"). The positive reviews are also by other critical geographers. Thenightaway (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2024 (UTC)