Gentrification from within: urban social change as anthropological process

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research in a traditional Shanghainese alleyway-house neighborhood (known locally as lilong) during 2013–2015, this study describes how knowledge of the global encourages pragmatic local residents to foresee a different future and voluntarily get involved in the process of urban renewal to enhance their own interests. This study unpacks the notion of architectural heritage as a selling point of dilapidated structures, which is the means through which local residents mobilize their knowledge to benefit themselves in the fight against local government authorities and the market economy. “Gentrification from within” is the concept that I develop in this paper to explain this unique process of demographic change involving capital investment and cultural reproduction, in which the original residents themselves are the key actors in the diversification of a traditional neighborhood.