The evidence on the impact of gentrification: new lessons for the urban renaissance?

Abstract

Does gentrification help or harm residential neighbourhoods and what are the implications of this evidence for current urban policies? This paper reports on a systematic review of the English-language research literature on gentrification which attempted to identify the range of costs and benefits associated with the process. It is concluded from this that existing evidence on gentrification shows it to have been largely harmful, predominantly through household displacement and community conflict. The paper then turns to the question of whether current UK urban policy developments are likely to engender gentrification. It is argued that, on the one hand, the language of gentrification processes have been used widely in regeneration policy documents to suggest positive forces for local housing and neighbourhood change. Meanwhile, policy instruments designed to deliver an urban renaissance suggest responses to the problem of gentrification in particular regional contexts and the promotion of gentrification itself in other localities. The paper concludes that the aims of an inclusive renaissance agenda appear to have been discarded in favour of policies which pursue revitalization through gentrification and displacement.