Introduction: Gentrification and Retail Change

Abstract

The literature on contemporary cities is vast, constantly evolving as it struggles to keep pace with frenetic processes of urban restructuring. But for the last 50 years or so, one theoretical concept has consistently been to the fore: urban gentrification. Originally invoked to describe the social transformation of some of London’s inner city neighbourhoods via the ‘sweat equity’ of owner-occupiers, the term is now routinely used to describe any instance where landscapes of long-term disinvestment are ‘upscaled’ through state funding, corporate speculation or individual initiative. Around the world, we are seeing neighbourhoods long associated with working-class and minority populations being reinvented in accordance with contemporary ideals of metropolitan living, with new residents and tourists consuming these spaces as sites of leisured, middle-class urbanity. Corporations search eagerly for new opportunities to exploit the ‘rent gap’ between current and potential rents, often aided and abetted by state governors keen to see an urban transformation. The theories and experiences of gentrification first worked through in London in the 1960s are then being updated and revised as new landscapes and spaces of gentrification become apparent elsewhere, including the global South. Indeed, the putative globalization of gentrification has led some scholars to suggest the pulse behind gentrification is now generalized, and a key dimension of ‘planetary urbanism’ (Merrifield 2013; Wyly 2015). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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