The process of neighborhood change where higher-income residents move into traditionally lower-income areas, often leading to displacement of original residents and transformation of the area's character. This typically involves renovation of housing and changes in local businesses and services.
Coined by British sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 from 'gentry' (landed aristocracy), describing how middle-class professionals were buying and renovating working-class housing in London. The '-ification' suffix emphasizes the transformative process involved.
You can track gentrification by coffee shops and bike lanes – they're like canaries in the coal mine of neighborhood change! Cities now use 'coffee shop density' as an actual metric to measure how quickly areas are transforming economically and socially.
Gentrification disproportionately affects women, particularly women of color and single mothers in working-class neighborhoods. Historic redlining policies (1930s-1960s) that created segregated neighborhoods were explicitly gendered, as women were concentrated in lower-wage sectors and had limited access to property ownership and generational wealth.
Discuss gentrification's gendered impacts: women experience higher rates of displacement, lose access to female-centered community institutions, and have fewer economic pathways to stay in upgrading neighborhoods.
Women community organizers, particularly Black women and Latina women, have led gentrification resistance movements. Credit their organizing, policy advocacy, and knowledge of neighborhood history.
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