Gentrification, Class and Residence : A Reappraisal

Based on research in a west London neighbourhood, this paper aims to expose the inadequacies of current arguments about the role of residence on class relations in a gentrifying neighbourhood.

The nature of city-wide social relations suggests that ties to neighbourhood also tend to be related to stage-in-the-lifecycle and workplace alongside class considerations.

The paper reveals: an analysis of gentrification must include workplace as well as home and be situated at a city-wide scale rather than being confined to residential neighbourhoods; residence must be treated as a temporal as well as a spatial concept; and the "residence tradition" of social geography is inadequate for a full understanding of social change in cities.

Social network analysis is a method which helps overcome some of the weaknesses of the residence tradition.