Gentrification and the Politics of the New Middle Class

Abstract

Whereas authors have frequently alluded to an adversarial politics among the new middle class of professional and managerial workers, surveys and electoral returns confirm a generally conservative disposition in this group as a whole. In this paper I seek to specify a social location for left—liberal politics among a distinctive cadre of social and cultural professionals, the cultural new class. This cadre also bears a distinct geographical identity, with an overconcentration in the central cities of large metropolitan areas, not least in their gentrifying districts. The part played since 1968 by the cultural new class in these gentrifying districts in redefining the urban politics of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver is examined. In particular, the role of a gentrifying middle class in challenging a postwar hegemony of growth boosterism practised by the conservative regimes in all three cities, and their parallel attempt to sustain an alternative regime of reform politics, are assessed.