An Anatomy of Gentrification Processes:
Several theoretical debates in gentrification literature deal with the role and importance of migration, in situ social mobility, and demographic change in urban social change. These debates focus primarily on structural processes. However, we have comparatively little insight into how and to what degree different mechanisms actually underpin upgrading in urban neighborhoods.
This paper uses Dutch register data to show how residential mobility, social mobility, and demographic change each contribute to gentrification in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. First, our findings show that residential mobility remains key to understanding the growth of higher-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods. At the same time, social mobility and demographic change notably aging—are most important in explaining the dwindling numbers of lower-income residents.
Second, large differences exist across neighborhoods. By mapping three ideal-typical drivers of gentrification, we show how the migration-based ‘displacement model’ occurs predominantly in upgrading neighborhoods with high status. Conversely, in low-status upgrading neighborhoods social mobility is more important in explaining gentrification. These different forms of upgrading occur simultaneously in both cities and should be integrated to advance our understanding of gentrification as a process that is both widespread and occurs in different, ever-changing forms across neighborhoods.
Recent debates on urban gentrification have revolved around the question on what is structurally causing the middle-class transformation of North American and European cities. Notwithstanding the literature on neoliberal urbanism and the political economy of capitalism (notably N Smith, 2002), two related debates have dominated conceptualization’s of the gentrification process: the displacement versus replacement debate (eg, Butler and Hamnett, 2009, Freeman, 2005; Slater, 2009), and class versus demography debate (eg, Buzar et al, 2007; Davidson and Lees, 2010; Van Criekingen, 2010).
To put it simply, disputes revolve around the question of which structural cause is predominant: class politics resulting in displacement, or population shifts related to demography and economic restructuring. As a result, urban and neighborhood change has been analyzed and appraised in light of either position. Yet, strangely, even though positions on structural causation have become highly developed, we have comparatively little insight into the material causes of neighborhood change:(1) how and to what degree do different processes actually underpin upgrading in urban neighborhoods, and do they vary for different types of cities.
To explain neighborhood social change, gentrification studies typically focus on migration and the characteristics of both in-movers and out-movers. Classic definitions refer to the arrival of more affluent middle-class and to lower-income, lower-class residents increasingly moving out (eg, Atkinson, 2000; Newman and Wyly, 2006; Slater, 2006). Yet, residential mobility is insufficient to explain neighborhood change, and changing migration trends are one of the multiple processes causing neighborhood upgrading. A few studies have stressed the importance of in situ social mobility processes in explaining processes of neighborhood upgrading and downgrading (eg, Clay, 1979; Teernstra, 2014; Van Criekingen and Decroly, 2003).
Likewise, in explaining social change at the urban level, several authors have pointed to demographic shifts in Western European cities (see Buzar et al, 2007), particularly in cities that are performing well economically. Notable shifts include the increased influx of young people, the willingness of middle-class residents to remain in the city after family formation, and the aging of the traditional working class (see Boterman et al, 2010; Butler and Hamnett, 2009; Rérat, 2012). As life-course processes are unevenly distributed within the city (Musterd et al, 2015a), demographic trends will likely contribute to neighborhood change and do so unevenly across the city.
These three mechanisms—residential mobility,(3) social mobility, and changing demographics—have become associated with theoretical positions on gentrification, and in some cases become central to the structural debates. This paper sets out to disentangle these processes in an empirical fashion. Our key research goal is to explore the degree to which different forms or models of gentrification can simultaneously take place within single urban contexts.