Gentrification: What It Is, Why It Is, and What Can Be Done about It

Abstract This article outlines the key contemporary debates on gentrification, most of which arise from variations in the process: in interpretations, assessments of displacement, the agents involved and the forms that gentrified cities take. The variations are so extensive that some scholars argue that gentrification has become too broad a concept to retain analytical coherency. Others counter that the logic of gentrification is now so generalised that the concept captures no less than the fundamental state and market‐driven ‘class remake’ of cities throughout the world. The article agrees with the latter position and proposes that gentrification should be considered part of a broader continuum of social and economic geographic change, replacing the useful but out‐dated stage model but still accommodating the myriad of variations within its underlying logics. Understanding gentrification as a complex but coherent concept highlights the importance of time and place in the viability of progressive policy responses to gentrification's inequitable effects.