Gentrification and the creation and formation of rent gaps

This contribution intervenes in the debate about gentrification theory's applicability to contexts outside the Global North, specifically responding to the work of [Ghertner, D. Asher. 2014. ‘India’s Urban Revolution: Geographies of Displacement beyond Gentrification.’ Environment and Planning A 46 (7): 1554–1571; Ghertner, D. Asher. 2015. ‘Why Gentrification Theory Fails in “Much of the World”.’ City 19 (4): 552–563]. It aims to show that, contrary to Ghertner's claims, gentrification theory is well equipped to analyze and understand the many different factors and forces that are involved in processes of urbanization and urban change across the globe. However, in order for the theory to be able to properly grasp these, I propose that we distinguish between two distinct processes involved in gentrification: (1) the creation and formation of rent gaps, making very relevant the state violence and legal/regulatory changes that accompany the enclosures and accumulation by dispossession that Ghertner says gentrification theory renders ‘unthinkable’, as well as other forces such as informality and conflict, and (2) these rent gaps’ subsequent closure (including property development), because the existence of a rent gap in and of itself is not a sufficient explanation of gentrification. Instead, whether areas with a rent gap gentrify is subject to numerous local specificities in the Global North and South alike. This distinction forces gentrification scholars to pay thorough attention to the political, cultural, social and economic factors that guide the creation and exploitation of rent gaps throughout the globe. To illustrate my arguments, I use examples from my work on the urban transformation of Beirut, Lebanon.