Beyond Gentrification: The Demographic Reurbanisation of Bologna
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the changing population geographies of the city of Bologna, with the aim of establishing, whether the concept of reurbanisation can provide a more useful encapsulation of its recent sociospatial transformations.
Abstract: It has recently come into question whether the term ‘gentrification’ can capture the wide array of contemporary demographic processes in the inner city. There is also a need to extend the gentrification debate beyond the Anglo-American context, while understanding the urban implications of contemporary demographic processes. In response to such challenges we examine the changing population geographies of the city of Bologna, with the aim of establishing, whether the concept of ‘reurbanisation’ can provide a more useful encapsulation of its recent sociospatial transformations. Upon investigating the spatial patterns and movements of relevant population structures at various scales within the city, we have found that Bologna is the site of multifaceted and multidirectional demographic trends. In their entirety, these dynamics are leading to the social diversification, ‘residentialisation’, and fragmentation of the urban fabric. Such processes cannot be subsumed under the notion of gentrification because the...
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2,204 citations
TL;DR: New-build gentrification has been the subject of renewed attention of late as discussed by the authors, with a new questioning of whether this, or any, contemporary form of gentrification produces significant displacement concerns.
Abstract: New-build gentrification has been the subject of renewed attention of late. The impetus was Lambert and Boddy, who asserted that inner-city new-build developments in British city centres should not be viewed as a form of gentrification. While the term has long been generally accepted, Lambert and Boddy, and, more recently, Boddy, argue that the demographic transformations stimulated by city centre new-build developments are relatively innocuous. They do not cause population displacement, and are not associated with the rent-hike and eviction processes of gentrification proper. Indeed, within a move to rethink the workings and consequences of gentrification more generally (e.g. Butler), there has been a new questioning of whether this, or any, contemporary form of gentrification produces significant displacement concerns. In this paper, we address these new debates. We begin by tracing the histories of new-build gentrification, highlighting its long-standing presence, and then we move on to look at its trajectories, focusing our lens on London to demonstrate the diversity and complexity of this process in just one city. We outline the presence of displacement – both direct and indirect – as a complex and nuanced process (not just a spatial moment), but one that has nevertheless had a real-life impact on real people. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
325 citations
Cites background from "Beyond Gentrification: The Demograp..."
...Instead, they prefer terms like ‘reurbanisation’ or ‘residentialisation’ (e.g. Lambert and Boddy, 2002; Butler, 2007b; Boddy 2007; Buzar et al., 2007)....
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...…low fertility, the postponement of marriage and childbearing, declining marriage and rising divorce rates, increasing proportions of children born outside wedlock, and growing numbers of households cohabiting or living in non-conventional or ‘fl uid’ household structures (Buzar et al., 2007a)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined urban population trends for 158 European agglomerations and assessed the dynamics behind one particular development of growth or decline, using data from 1991 to 2004, and found statistical evidence of diversifying population trajectories for core cities and fringe areas.
Abstract: The beginning of the 21st century marks the first time in history that more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. In Europe, more than 70% of the population lives in urban areas today. This number is likely to increase to 84% by 2050. However, a shift from growth to decline of urban population is already present for a growing number of cities. The paper examines urban population trends for 158 European agglomerations and assesses the dynamics behind one particular development of growth or decline. Using data from 1991 to 2004, we present statistical evidence of diversifying population trajectories for core cities and fringe areas. The quantitative results are contrasted with the widespread accepted cyclical urbanisation model that has been expounded as a theoretical approach to describe previous and future stages of European urban development. The structural approach of the model is discussed because we believe that such concepts do not reflect the dynamics of present urban development in Europe. The paper argues that the urban agglomerations studied do not show a single evolutionary stage of urban development. Rather, we found a coexistence of intensifying suburbanisation and developing reurbanisation, which is mainly driven by younger households. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
289 citations
Journal Article•
247 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the use of the term "gentrification" is highly dependent on contextual causality and its generalized use will not remove its contextual attachment to the Anglo-American metropolis, and that looking for gentrification in increasingly varied contexts displaces emphasis from causal mechanisms to similarities in outcomes across contexts.
Abstract: This article argues against the allegedly inter-contextual character of gentrification within the new gentrification research agenda. The main argument is that gentrification is a concept highly dependent on contextual causality and its generalized use will not remove its contextual attachment to the Anglo-American metropolis. The second argument is that looking for gentrification in increasingly varied contexts displaces emphasis from causal mechanisms to similarities in outcomes across contexts, and leads to a loss of analytical rigour. The third argument refers to the ideological and political impact of equating ‘gentrification’ with, and projecting its neoliberal frame on, the different forms of urban regeneration across various geographical and historical contexts. As gentrification becomes quasi synonymous with urban regeneration, it becomes less useful to the analysis of urban socio-spatial change and, since the use of this term seems no longer avoidable in academic and broader discourse, its impli...
183 citations
Additional excerpts
...…such as ‘super gentrification’, ‘residentialization’, ‘reurbanization’, ‘studentification’, ‘embourgeoisement’, ‘gentrification in rural settings’ etc. (Butler, 2007; Buzar et al., 2007; Lambert and Boddy, 2002; Lees, 2000; Phillips, 2004; Preteceille, 2007; Smith, 2005; Smith and Butler, 2007)....
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References
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01 Mar 2004
TL;DR: The Rise of the Creative Class as mentioned in this paper describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant, with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing.
Abstract: The national bestseller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Washington Monthly 2002 Annual Political Book Award WinnerThe Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today-and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy. Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have-with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living-the Creative Class. The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.
7,252 citations
"Beyond Gentrification: The Demograp..." refers background in this paper
...…(Caulfield, 1989; Lauria and Knopp, 1985; Taylor, 1992; Valentine, 1995); . the cultural regeneration of inner-city areas (Deben et al, 1992; Florida, 2002; Griffiths, 1995; Ley, 2003; Miles and Paddison, 2005); . the changing meaning of the term `gentrification' as such (Hamnett, 1991;…...
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Book•
01 Jan 1997TL;DR: The 1990 WVS Questionnaire was used by as mentioned in this paper for the ICPSR Questionnaire, with variable numbers of items used in Table 1 and Table 2... Table 1.
Abstract: Acknowledgments Ch. 1 Value Systems: The Subjective Aspect of Politics and Economics Ch. 2 Individual-Level Change and Societal-Level Change Ch. 3 Modernization and Postmodernization in 43 Societies Ch. 4 Measuring Materialist and Postmaterialist Values Ch. 5 The Shift toward Postmaterialist Values, 1970-1994 Ch. 6 Economic Development, Political Culture, and Democracy: Bringing the People Back In Ch. 7 The Impact of Culture on Economic Growth Ch. 8 The Rise of New Issues and New Parties Ch. 9 The Shift toward Postmodern Values: Predicted and Observed Changes, 1981-1990 Ch. 10 The Erosion of Institutional Authority and the Rise of Citizen Intervention in Politics Ch. 11 Trajectories of Social Change App. 1 A Note on Sampling: Figures A.1 and A.2 App. 2 Partial 1990 WVS Questionnaire, with Short Labels for Items Used in Figure 3.2 App. 3 Supplementary Figures for Chapters 3, 9, and 10 Figures A.3 (Chapter 6), A.4-A.21 (Chapter 9), A.22-A.26 (Chapter 10), and A.27 (Chapter 11) App. 4 Construction of Key Indices Used in This Book App. 5 Complete 1990 WVS Questionnaire, with Variable Numbers in ICPSR Dataset References Index
5,399 citations
"Beyond Gentrification: The Demograp..." refers background in this paper
...The second demographic transition is related to a wider array of `postmaterialist' and `postmodern' social, economic, and institutional changes that have been unfolding in the developed world during the last thirty years (Inglehart, 1997; Soja, 2001; Van de Kaa, 2001)....
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2,204 citations
"Beyond Gentrification: The Demograp..." refers background in this paper
...…1995); . the cultural regeneration of inner-city areas (Deben et al, 1992; Florida, 2002; Griffiths, 1995; Ley, 2003; Miles and Paddison, 2005); . the changing meaning of the term `gentrification' as such (Hamnett, 1991; Lees, 1994; 2000; Ley, 1986; Slater, 2002; Slater et al, 2004; Smith, 1996)....
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...Its main aim is to examine whether the concept of gentrification, in its commonly understood meaning (see, for example, Glass, 1964; Hamnett, 1991; Smith, 1996), can adequately capture the distribution of different population structures in the inner city....
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01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: This article argued that the demographic changes since the 1950s in the Western world with respect to family formation and dissolution form a sufficiently cohesive set to warrant a more holistic treatment instead of a variable by variable approach.
Abstract: This article argues that the demographic changes since the 1950s in the Western world...with respect to family formation and dissolution form a sufficiently cohesive set to warrant a more holistic treatment instead of a variable by variable approach....The central point made in the paper is that alongside the influence of economic factors the recent demographic changes are also closely connected with the rise of manifestations of individual autonomy. Evidence gathered at the micro-level in a variety of countries is discussed within the framework of a theory with multiple causation and a statistical analysis at the macro-level (24 countries) is also presented. The outcome of both is consistent in the demonstration that ideational developments form a non-redundant ingredient in the explanation. Nevertheless the country-level analysis shows that non-negligible national idiosyncrasies remain even after allowing for the combined influences of both economic and cultural factors. (SUMMARY IN ENG AND FRE) (EXCERPT)
855 citations
"Beyond Gentrification: The Demograp..." refers background in this paper
...…and childbearing, declining marriage and rising divorce rates, increasing proportions of children born out of wedlock, and growing numbers of households cohabiting or living in nonconventional or `fluid' household structures (Bongaarts, 2002; Friedlander et al, 1999; Hall, 1986; Lesthaeghe, 1995)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the role of artists as agents and aestheticisation as a process in contributing to the process of gentrification is considered, an argument illustrated with empirical data from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Abstract: Summary. Gentrification involves the transition of inner-city neighbourhoods from a status of relative poverty and limited property investment to a state of commodification and reinvestment. This paper reconsiders the role of artists as agents, and aestheticisation as a process, in contributing to gentrification, an argument illustrated with empirical data from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Because some poverty neighbourhoods may be candidates for occupation by artists, who value their affordability and mundane, off-centre status, the study also considers the movement of districts from a position of high cultural capital and low economic capital to a position of steadily rising economic capital. The paper makes extensive use of Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of the field of cultural production, including his discussion of the uneasy relations of economic and cultural capitals, the power of the aesthetic disposition to valorise the mundane and the appropriation of cultural capital by market forces. Bourdieu’s thinking is extended to the field of gentrification in an account that interprets the enhanced valuation of cultural capital since the 1960s, encouraging spatial proximity by other professionals to the inner-city habitus of the artist. This approach offers some reconciliation to theoretical debates in the gentrification literature about the roles of structure and agency and economic and cultural explanations. It also casts a more critical historical perspective on current writing lauding the rise of the cultural economy and the creative city. Two recent vignettes illustrate how gentrification has become not a sideshow in the city, but a major component of the urban imaginary (see Wyly and Hammel, 1999; Badcock, 2001). Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class (2002a), a book eagerly embraced by mayors and economic development planners in the US (Eakin, 2002), visited Toronto in June 2002 and expounded on what makes successful cities work
736 citations
Additional excerpts
...the cultural regeneration of inner-city areas (Deben et al, 1992; Florida, 2002; Griffiths, 1995; Ley, 2003; Miles and Paddison, 2005); ....
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...…and Knopp, 1985; Taylor, 1992; Valentine, 1995); . the cultural regeneration of inner-city areas (Deben et al, 1992; Florida, 2002; Griffiths, 1995; Ley, 2003; Miles and Paddison, 2005); . the changing meaning of the term `gentrification' as such (Hamnett, 1991; Lees, 1994; 2000; Ley, 1986;…...
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