A New Look at Gentrification: 1. Gentrification and Domestic Technologies

Abstract

In this paper I take issue with what I identify as a basic consensus in gentrification studies. I argue that gentrification studies have been conducted within a context framed by two basic models of urban development, namely the Burgess concentric-zone model and the Alonso bid-rent model. These two models lie at the heart of what are more usually seen as the parameters of the gentrification debate, namely the ‘supply-side’ rent-gap account of gentrification offered by Neil Smith and his followers and the ‘demand-side’ consumption-oriented explanations offered by David Ley and his followers. Both sets of explanations are, however, fatally compromised by seeking to answer the question ‘why does gentrification occur?’ before answering the question ‘how does gentrification occur?’. Starting with the question ‘how?’, rather than ‘why?’, draws attention to the hitherto almost completely neglected role of domestic technologies in permitting gentrification to occur, thereby helping break the theoretical logjam in which the gentrification debate currently finds itself.