Other geographies of gentrification

Abstract

This paper considers recent pleas for a ‘geography of gentrification’, arguing that they have been very urban in focus and often enact what, following Soja (1996), might be described as ‘firstspace epistemology’. The paper identifies traces of other, secondspace and thirdspace geographies of gentrification. It is argued that these geographies may not be fully commensurable with each other but that they each may have some commensurability with rural as well as the urban spatialities. The paper goes on to explore these arguments in relation to studies of gentrification of the British countryside, focusing particularly on gentrification in rural Norfolk.

The ‘green green grass of home’? Return migration to rural Ireland

“…Cloke, Goodwin and Milbourne (1998) have explored the conflicts that occur between 'locals' and 'incomers' in English and Welsh rural localities, highlighting the importance of differential expectations of the nature of rural life in this. The counterurbanisation process in England and Wales has been understood in terms of a middle class colonisation or gentrification of particular rural areas (Cloke, Phillips and Thrift, 1998;Phillips, 2004).…”

Rural gentrification in the North Aegean Countryside (Turkey)

“…Gentrification is examined via two different approaches; the production and consumption theory sides (Phillips, 2009;Phillips, 2004;Stockdale, 2010;Guimod & Simard, 2010). Production theory explains the process with a Marxist approach by focusing on alteration of production methods and economic structure.…”

“…Rural gentrification literature has to a significant extent developed with research that addresses the United Kingdom (Phillips, 1993;Chaney & Sherwood, 2000;Smith D. P., 2002;Phillips, 2004;Phillips, 2007;Stockdale, 2010;Heley, 2010) and United States of America countryside (Ghose, 2004;Friedberger, 1996;Darling, 2005;Walker & Fortmann, 2003;Hines, 2010;Gosnell & Abrams, 2011;Nelson et al, 2010). Researches that discuss gentrification processes in rural areas of other developed countries (Bijker et al, 2012;Guimond & Simard, 2010) and Mediterranean countries (Solana-Solana, 2010) are informative, but are limited in number and point to a significant gap in the literature.…”

Postmodern City, Gentrification and the Social Production of Fragmented Space

“…According to Phillips (2005), in the 1980s human geography has been influenced by a wider variety of intellectual influences including those associated with some notion of postmodernism. The study of gentrification has not been immune from these changes, and indeed in many respects has been amongst the leading sites of contestation over the significance of ideas of postmodernism.…”