The Death and Life of Gentrification

Name: The Death and Life of Gentrification
Price: 49.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9780691244358

A New Map of a Persistent Idea

Japonica Brown-Saracino

$49.99

Hardback

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English

Miscellaneous
01 May 2026

History; Social classes; Urban communities; Sociology; Urban & municipal planning

Series: Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology

A provocative account of what is gained and what is lost when a word that once narrowly referred to neighbourhood change takes on a life all its own.

Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in the 1960s to mark the displacement of working-class residents in London neighbourhoods by the professional classes. The Death and Life of Gentrification traces how the word has far outgrown Glass's meaning, becoming a socially charged metaphor for cultural appropriation, upscaling, and the loss of authenticity.

In this lively and insightful book, Japonica Brown-Saracino traces how a concept originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighbourhoods has come to characterise transformations that have little to do with cities. She describes how journalists, artists, filmmakers, novelists, and academics use gentrification as a symbolic device to mourn how everyday pleasures and forms of self-expression

from music to marijuana, kale, and tattoos

entered the domain of the elite. She weighs the implications of turning to gentrification as a tool to tell stories, entertain audiences, and communicate political messages. Relying on vivid examples, the book reveals how the term today expresses widespread ambivalence about rising economic inequality and unease with a variety of forms of social change. This pathbreaking book forces us to think about whether the wide-ranging way we use gentrification dilutes its meaning and stymies efforts to identify and resist urban displacement.

Drawing on everything from film and television to novels and art, The Death and Life of Gentrification sheds critical light on the changing meaning of gentrification in contemporary life. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in gentrification and urban dynamics, as well as for readers curious about attitudes about growing income inequality and the evolution and circulation of ideas.

By: Japonica Brown-Saracino
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780691244358
ISBN 10: 0691244359
Series: Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 01 May 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Japonica Brown-Saracino is a regular commentator for major news organisations such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Atlantic and is the award-winning author of A Neighborhood that Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity and How Places Make Us: Novel LBQ Identities in Four Small Cities. She is professor of sociology and women's, gender, and sexualities studies at Boston University, where she serves as faculty fellow at the Initiative on Cities.

Reviews for The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea

""This wide-ranging study explores how the term ‘gentrification’ has slipped the bonds of its original, ‘brick-and-mortar’ usage, becoming a way to signal loss while addressing ‘structural inequalities and concomitant social changes.’"" * New Yorker * ""[A] keen analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of a protean idea in today’s political and social life."" * Publishers Weekly * ""Brown-Saracino deserves considerable praise for urging us to look within and to use what we have found to connect the gentrification of the built environment to cultural dispossession and appropriation. This is significant. Without fully grasping the concept’s multiple meanings, we can neither fully judge its consequences nor craft the moral stance required of an engaged scholar. ""---Robert Beauregard, Urban Policy and Research ""Provocative. . . . The book offers an excellent critique of the cultural theory of gentrification. . . . The Death and Life of Gentrification is a significant contribution to the fields of urban sociology, planning, geography, and cultural studies. It challenges scholars to look beyond the literal physical changes in neighborhoods and evaluate our entire capitalist system.""---Laura Santos Granja, Housing and Society