Global Gentrifications

“The political economy of inequality and poverty is foundational for understanding cities everywhere. This wonderfully curated volume on gentrification does this to illuminate urban realities of the global south.” Susan Parnell, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town

"The ambition and the achievement of such a wide-ranging collaborative project is an object lesson to the discipline as a whole." The AAG Review of Books

"This book is a noteworthy effort to break down the traditional theoretical framework that linked, from the outset, the study of gentrification to the Anglo American model city of the Global North." Urban Studies

"This magnificent collection of gentrification studies interrogates this classic western-derived concept at an unprecedentedly global scale.The book profoundly extends the scope of gentrification research and reinvigorates the notion from the perspective of comparative urbanism." Fulong Wu, Bartlett Professor of Planning UCL

"This remarkable book, edited with clarity of vision and political purpose, is sensitive to the 'new comparative urbanism' whilst arguing that to 'unlearn' how we theorise gentrification would be highly questionable. The circulation of capital and the dominance of speculative landed developer interests in cities is leading to massive displacement and social suffering, and this timely volume reminds us that these issues should be at the forefront of our inquiries." Tom Slater, University of Edinburgh

Loretta Lees is Professor of Human Geography and Director of Research in the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester.

Hyun Bang Shin is Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ernesto López-Morales is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Chile.

Introduction: ‘gentrification’ – a global urban process? ~ Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin and Ernesto López-Morales;

Unravelling the yarn of gentrification trends in the contested inner city of Athens ~ Georgia Alexandri;

Slum gentrification in Lisbon, Portugal: displacement and the imagined futures of an informal settlement ~ Eduardo Ascensão;

City upgraded: redesigning and disciplining downtown Abu Dhabi ~ Surajit Chakravarty and Abdellatif Qamhaieh;

Confronting favela chic: the gentrification of informal settlements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ~ Jake Cummings;

Rethinking gentrification in India: displacement, dispossession and the spectre of development ~ Sapana Doshi;

The prospects of gentrification in downtown Cairo: artists, private investment and the neglectful state ~ Mohamed Elshahed;

Widespread and diverse forms of gentrification in Israel ~ Amiram Gonen;

The endogenous dynamics of urban renewal and gentrification in Seoul ~ Seong-Kyu Ha;

Value extraction from land and real estate in Karachi ~ Arif Hasan;

Gentrification in Buenos Aires: global trends and local features ~ Hilda Herzer, María Mercedes Di Virgilio and María Carla Rodríguez;

Promoting private interest by public hands? The gentrification of public lands by housing policies in Taipei City ~ Liling Huang;

The making of, and resistance to, state-led gentrification in Istanbul, Turkey ~ Tolga Islam and Bahar Sakızlıoglu;

Gentrification, neoliberalism and loss in Puebla, Mexico ~ Gareth Jones;

Capital, state and conflict: the various drivers of diverse gentrification processes in Beirut, Lebanon ~ Marieke Krijnen and Christiaan De Beukelaer;

Gentrification in Nigeria: the case of two housing estates in Lagos ~ Chinwe Nwanna;

Gentrification in China? ~ Julie Ren;

Emerging retail gentrification in Santiago de Chile: the case of Italia-Caupolicán ~ Elke Schlack and Neil Turnbull;

Gentrification dispositifs in the historic centre of Madrid: a reconsideration of urban governmentality and state-led urban reconfiguration ~ Jorge Sequera and Michael Janoschka;

When authoritarianism embraces gentrification – the case of Old Damascus, Syria ~ Yannick Sudermann;

The place of gentrification in Cape Town ~ Annika Teppo and Marianne Millstein;

Conclusion: global gentrifications ~ Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin and Ernesto López-Morales;

Afterword The adventure of generic gentrification ~ Eric Clark.