gentrification

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the process by which investment and renovation in a previously disinvested urban neighbourhood raises property values, attracts higher-income residents and businesses, and displaces lower-income incumbent residents and culturally distinctive uses that can no longer afford the rising rents; the term was coined by sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe changes in London's Islington and has since become one of the most contested concepts in urban studies; proponents argue that gentrification repairs neglected neighbourhoods, increases tax revenues, and reduces concentrated poverty; critics contend that it displaces vulnerable communities, erases cultural heritage, and represents a transfer of neighbourhood assets from poor to wealthy residents without adequate compensation