Gay Gentrification

Gentrification is a contentious dimension of urban renewal. The term describes the process whereby rundown, industrial, marginal, low-income, or working-class neighborhoods are transformed into middle-class, wealthy residential neighborhoods or desirable entertainment or commercial precincts. Economic, demographic, and lifestyle shifts are bound up in the process. Gentrification entails transformations in the material aesthetic of the neighborhood, an increasing share of wealthier residents and commercial premises, rising rent and property prices, and the displacement of long-term residents and businesses unable to afford the increasing costs of local living. It is most commonly associated with changes, which started in the 1960s and are ongoing, in inner-city neighborhoods of large cities in the Global North.

While gentrification is a broad urban renewal process, since the early 1980s a diverse range ...