Gentrification as Consumption: Issues of Class and Gender

In this paper some issues concerning the interpretation of urban gentrification in the context of debates about the relationship between production and consumption are examined. Two different types of gentrification are distinguished, one the work of the property developer, the other the outcome of the localised collective behaviour of households. Existing accounts of gentrification are criticised for their lack of explanatory value. It is argued that gentrification is unlikely to be founded in the distinctive behaviour of particular fractions of the middle class, because their cultural practices are weakly constrained. Rather it is the ways in which women adapt to new patterns of employment that provide the most plausible explanation of the origins of the process.