What Makes Gentrification Wrong? A Place-based Account

Abstract Through an analysis of the moral relationship between people and place, this paper offers a new view of the wrongful character of gentrification, which is pluralistic, locating the wrong in the non-fulfillment of three place-related rights: rights to a home, rights of residency, and place-based rights to a community. By focusing on the multiple ways that people are connected to place, we offer a more complete and systematic account of place-related rights that is not only able to make sense of people’s lived experiences of the harms of gentrification but is also able to address standard criticisms, which have been made of other key accounts of the wrong of gentrification.