Looking at the "North American City" Through the Lens of Gentrification Discourse

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This paper introduces a new way of thinking about gentrification, by showing how two discourses of gentrification, the "revanchist city" (an American construct) and the "emancipatory city" (a Canadian construct) are produced and articulated in their national contexts. I demonstrate that such an approach allows to us to rethink the critique of "continentalism" vis-à-vis the "North American City" first posited by Goldberg and Mercer (1986). Following an explanation of why a consideration of discursive formations is important for the construction of a "geography of gentrification," the paper discusses the debate over continentalism before analysing the two gentrification discourses to illustrate the poetics and politics of representation which underpin them. The central argument is that our understandings of both gentrification and continentalism could be furthered by a new direction for gentrification research which is sensitive to context and takes onboard these academic discourses, examines the interplay which exists between them, and finds evidence to accept or reject the discourses in gentrifying neighborhoods throughout Canada and America.