Gentrification and the Changing Urban Form

Gentrification and the changing Urban Form
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Gentrification and the changing Urban Form
Introduction
The increasing urbanization in most cities has raised a plethora of both simple and complex concerns. One such controversial issue revolves around gentrification, which permeates scholarly, political, and urbanization debates. Lees, Slater & Wyly (2013) defined gentrification as transforming vacant areas within cities into commercial hubs or middle-class residential areas. Thus, gentrification denotes urban development, growth, and transformation of a city's neighborhoods from low-value to high-value. Gentrification is the transformation of a city neighborhood from low value to high value. Gentrification involves whole or portions of urban development over a given time due to urban renewal programs. There is so much debate over what constitutes gentrification, including what processes underlie it and its role in urban regeneration, heightening racial division, and intense controversy regarding displacement of existing residents. What makes gentrification a contested theme emerges from its primary consequences are increasing property costs, increased congestions, the strain on existing resources and social amenities, and displacement of particular sections of neighborhood residents.
Understanding gentrification and its importance
Gentrification is a critical area of interest in the contemporary world. With merging climatic and environmental concerns, urban migration, and ballooning population, gentrification becomes an even more attractive area of discussion. Cities are now accounting for more than 50% of humanity's life, and most aspects of urban processes affect the whole globe (Bridge & Watson,2011). Thus, gentrification as a centric issue to discussions and contestations should not be surprising. Many people are drawn into discussions surrounding the gentrification phenomenon. Gentrification is a topic of heated debate in the public realm, scholarly, and policy circles (Slater, 2011).
But what is gentrification? It must be noted that a precise definition of gentrification is lacking, but various definitions focus on its effects, including emphasizing the displacement of existing residents, renewal or revitalization, changes in a neighborhood’s character and features, and changes in property values. Gentrification is a broad and complex area of interest and discourse. This terminology, “gentrification,” was pioneered by Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe distinct urban changes affecting inner London, in what was referred to as “classical gentrification,” where houses were upgraded, become more expensive, and more middle class taking up the spaces (Lees, Slater & Wyly (2013). Ruth Glass' understanding of gentrification provided a robust foundation to the growing definition of the gentrification concept.
Gentrification embodies inequities and upward societal change involving urbanization. The pioneering understanding of gentrification involved upper and middle socio-economic classes' mobility into areas mostly inhabited by lower-socio-economic populations, contributing to the broad interdisciplinary debates (Kobayashi, 2019)...