Negotiating Their Way In: The Middle Classes, Gentrification and the Deployment of Capital in a Globalising Metropolis

Abstract

In this article, a new approach is outlined to the gentrification of London which argues that it is a diverse phenomenon. This reflects not merely contested explanations for gentrification but more importantly the different ways in which individuals and social groups have reacted to the effect of living and/or working in global cities on their 'work-life balance'. As the middle classes have increasingly lost a sense of place-based rootedness at work, they have been struggling to build it in their domestic and residential lives. For many, this meant a move into the heart of the globalising metropolises. This has been associated with a proliferation of gentrified neighbourhoods in such cities. The paper reports on research undertaken in five such London neighbourhoods and presents three models of neighbourhood gentrification which have each produced their own patterns and narratives of settlement.