A Global Gentrifier Class?

Abstract

If gentrification is now global, I investigate the degree to which it is possible to argue that it involves a global gentrifier class. This is examined in a number of dimensions: occupational characteristics; the mix of economic and cultural capital; ideas of cosmopolitan knowledge; gentrification aesthetics and the use of urban space. I argue that, whilst a new middle class is reproduced in certain global cities, the diversity of aesthetic trajectories and the localisms of cosmopolitan knowledge suggest that the case for a global gentrifier class or urban new middle class is a weak one. Much more pervasive at a global scale is a conventional set of strategies of middle-class reproduction in preserving social distinction that now occurs in urban as well as suburban contexts.