Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies

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Fifteen years on, even without Gentrification Is Inevitable and other lies supplying me with a slew of foundational stories, anecdotes, and examples to help build out a framework of comprehension, I clearly see that this was naïve at best and willfully ignorant at worst. In my (white, suburban, male) mind, invasive colonial whiteness wasn’t inexorably linked to gentrification, but merely (“ merely”) happenstance due to structural co-incidents. Kern expertly weaves theory, concepts, and up-to-date debates about gentrification together, making it accessible not only to urban scholars but to general readers too. If you live long enough to be on a fixed income, gentrification screams, you might have made a mistake.

I think it is pretty essential reading for people that live in cities but also people who are concerned with housing policies and social justice in general. I read some Goodreads reviews whose authors criticized Kern for frequently citing the work of fellow scholars.her main gripe with gentrification discourse seems to be the over-emphasis on class which is sort of hard for me to wrap my head around because gentrification is, in fact, a class-structuring process.

It is exactly this type of academic-but-not-practical ���understanding” of a term that continues to support de facto whiteness and cultural supremacy–it is a weasel-word way of pushing through forced displacement of non-white non-het non-cis people while ignoring the racialized evils of capital-influxed “progress. She argues that gentrification is not natural That it can not be understood in economics terms, or by class. gentrification is not a metaphor and it is a material process, and i don't think its materiality or class dimension undermines the fact that gentrification is a continuation of colonial dispossession or racial discrimination or nuclear home life.

Leslie Kern dissects seven common myths about gentrification, asserting that any study of the urban phenomenon should be examined not only in terms of class but also through the lenses of queer-feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial points of view. I also appreciate both that she acknowledges her privilege as a white woman and how this has affected her as well as ends the book with concrete actions to take to dispute these lies. Like the author, I am white middle mom who made this place my home to find a cheaper way to raise my kids in an expensive city, opening the flood gates for yoga studios, drag brunch, and oat milk lattes. However, I also believe that this book is repetitive, and it detracted from the overall effectiveness of it. An insightful read on gentrification, capitalism, 'white privilege', and many things I haven't really thought about before, such as the gentrification of 'yoga', 'tattoos', and more.