As part of my continued re-examination of my concentration, I’ve conducted some research into both theories of gentrification and empirical examinations of the link between gentrification and transit. Here are five particularly pertinent sources I’ve found and intend to incorporate into my existing reference list:
Smith, Neil. 1996. “Global Arguments: Uneven Development.” In The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. 72-88. London and New York: Routledge.
While this whole book seems very interesting, Neil Smith being an eponymous geographer on gentrification, for the sake of time constraints, I’ve only read the chapter on uneven development so far. This chapter dovetails with his other work on the rent gap and supply-side theories of gentrification, explaining the phenomenon with a Marxist analysis. By “uneven development,” Smith doesn’t simply mean that different places are different—he’s using the term to refer to the contradiction within capitalism between tendencies towards spatial equalization (with the need for expanded capital accumulation driving capitalists to scour the globe, overcoming spatial barriers) and differentiation (based upon greater rates of investment in areas of higher profits), with the temporal lag between the two driving a see-saw process. He then connects gentrification to cycles of capital investment, disinvestment, and reinvestment, laying out the case for viewing gentrification as the spatial manifestation of falling rates of profit, at an urban scale.
Revington, Nick. 2015. “Gentrification, Transit, and Land Use: Moving Beyond Neoclassical Theory.” Geography Compass 9 (3): 152–63.
This article first summarizes the existing literature on the link between transit and housing prices/land values, with the majority of sources cited finding a notable positive association. One particularly interesting analysis, which I am unfortunately unable to access in full, found that housing prices, rents, incomes and car ownership(!) rose around some transit stations. The article situates these studies within the neoclassical locational indifference model that I’m pretty familiar with from my class in Urban Economics. Revington then critiques this model by drawing on David Harvey and Neil Smith’s work from the late 1970s/early 80s, noting the dynamic contradiction arising from the fixity of capital in the built environment (which enables the rent gap), the relevance of class struggles, and the locational injustices arising from wealth and power inequalities. Revington concludes by surveying contemporary research on “spatial capital,” posits that rail investment can enlarge a rent gap, and suggests areas for more critical research.
Goodling, Erin, Jamaal Green, and Nathan Mcclintock. 2015. “Uneven Development of the Sustainable City: Shifting Capital in Portland, Oregon.” Urban Geography 36 (4): 504–27.
This article applies Smith’s concept of uneven development and spatially expressed cycles of investment and disinvestment to the specific context of Portland. They incorporate Portland’s urban history, with the local details and racial politics filling out the underlying structural theory of gentrification and urban change.
This article examines home price and demographic data at the census tract level to assess the effect of transit stations on neighborhoods, finding that there was statistically significant gentrification near stations without parking for 9 of the 14 cities and an increase in poverty near park-and-ride stations.
Hochstenbach, Cody, and Wouter PC van Gent. 2015. “An Anatomy of Gentrification Processes: Variegating Causes of Neighbourhood Change.” Environment and Planning A 47 (7): 1480–1501.
This article summarizes the current academic debate over the dominant mechanism of neighborhood change—essentially if gentrification involves a heightened level of displacement, if it consists more benignly of wealthier residents gradually moving in as poorer residents move out at a baseline rate, or if it is a positive reflection of upward mobility and changing economic conditions. They then evaluate these positions with a spatial and statistical analysis, finding evidence for each of the three models of neighborhood change in various neighborhoods of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with the displacement model applying best to high-status, upgrading neighborhoods and the social mobility model applying best to low-status, gentrifying neighborhoods.