Why Cities Gentrify: New Framework Challenges Economics-Only View
Researchers analyzing Berlin and Stockholm found that rent gap theory—the dominant economic explanation for gentrification—misses critical political and social forces that actually drive displacement. The study reshapes how policymakers and developers should understand urban change, suggesting that controlling gentrification requires far more than managing property values.
Originaltitel: Producing and closing rent gaps: political and social dimensions
<p>Rent gap theory, pioneered by late Marxist geographer Neil Smith, remains highly influentialwithin the study of urban political economy. However, the theory’s grand ambition to explain theroot cause of gentrification has generated significant controversy and criticisms regarding itslimited consideration of social, political, and institutional factors. In this chapter, I examine thepolitical and social dimensions of rent gaps, drawing from empirical examples in Berlin andStockholm. Three key aspects emerge as crucial: first, I discuss conceptual finetuning, whichinvolves deconstructing the production, widening, and closure of rent gaps. Second, I advocatefor a conceptual extension of rent gap theory by integrating discussions on the role of the state,broader social and symbolic structures, and political configurations. Last, I discuss conceptualdistinction, which involves considering the expansion of rent gap theory’s applicability todifferent forms of uneven urban development, beyond traditional sociological understandings ofgentrification.</p>