Mind mapping the topic of gentrification

Mind mapping the topic of gentrification

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: The topic of gentrification is a main one in Housing Studies. This article makes use of the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach to render an image on the knowledge structure of gentrification. The finding of the review exercise is that its knowledge structure comprises four main themes, i.e., (a) Descriptions of basic concepts and information (b) Major underlying theories and thinking, (c) Main research topics and issues, and (d) Major trends and issues related to practices. There is also a set of key concepts identified from the gentrification literature review. The article offers some academic and pedagogical values on the topics of gentrification, literature review and the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach.

Key words: Gentrification, literature review, mind map, the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach

Introduction

Gentrification is a main topic in Housing Studies. It is of academic and pedagogical interest to the writer who has been a lecturer on Housing Studies for some tertiary education centres in Hong Kong. In this article, the writer presents his literature review findings on gentrification using the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach. This approach was proposed by this writer in 2016 and has been employed to review the literature on a number of topics, such as supply chain management, strategic management accounting and customer relationship management (Ho, 2016). The MMBLR approach itself is not particularly novel since mind mapping has been employed in literature review since its inception. The overall aims of this exercise are to:

1.      Render an image of the knowledge structure of gentrification via the application of the MMBLR approach;

2.      Illustrate how the MMBLR approach can be applied in literature review on an academic topic, such as gentrification.

The findings from this literature review exercise offer academic and pedagogical values to those who are interested in the topics of gentrification, literature review and the MMBLR approach. Other than that, this exercise facilitates this writer’s intellectual learning on these three topics. The next section makes a brief introduction on the MMBLR approach. After that, an account of how it is applied to study gentrification is presented.

On mind mapping-based literature review

The mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach was developed by this writer in 2016 (Ho, 2016). It makes use of mind mapping as a complementary literature review exercise (see the Literature on mind mapping Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page). The approach is made up of two steps. Step 1 is a thematic analysis on the literature of the topic chosen for study. Step 2 makes use of the findings from step 1 to produce a complementary mind map. The MMBLR approach is a relatively straightforward and brief exercise. The approach is not particularly original since the idea of using mind maps in literature review has been well recognized in the mind mapping literature. The MMBLR approach is also an interpretive exercise in the sense that different reviewers with different research interest and intellectual background inevitably will select different ideas, facts and findings in their thematic analysis (i.e., step 1 of the MMBLR approach). Also, to conduct the approach, the reviewer needs to perform a literature search beforehand. Apparently, what a reviewer gathers from a literature search depends on what library facility, including e-library, is available to the reviewer. The next section presents the findings from the MMBLR approach step 1; afterward, a companion mind map is provided based on the MMBLR approach step 1 findings.

Mind mapping-based literature review on gentrification: step 1 findings

Step 1 of the MMBLR approach is a thematic analysis on the literature of the topic under investigation (Ho, 2016). In our case, this is the gentrification topic. The writer gathers some academic articles from some universities’ e-libraries as well as via the Google Scholar. With the academic articles collected, the writer conducted a literature review on them to assemble a set of ideas, viewpoints, concepts and findings (called points here). The points from the gentrification literature are then grouped into four themes here. The key words in the quotations are bolded in order to highlight the key concepts involved.

Theme 1: Descriptions of basic concepts and information

Point 1.1.              “…in the early 21st century, gentrification has come to be understood as …..: a generalised middle-class restructuring of place, encompassing the entire transformation from low-status neighbourhoods to upper-middle-class playgrounds. Gentrifiers’ residences are no longer just renovated houses but newly built townhouses and high-rise apartments. Their workplaces are as likely to be new downtown or docklands office developments as warehouse studios. Gentrification extends to retail and commercial precincts, and can be seen in rural and coastal townships as well as cities. Its defining feature is conspicuous cultural consumption” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 1.2.              “Gentrification encompasses the two distinct processes of upper-income resettlement and housing renovation, which are usually modeled separately as independent phenomena” (Helms, 2003);

Point 1.3.              “Gentrification refers to the transition of property markets from relatively low value platforms to higher value platforms under the influence of redevelopment and influx of higher-income residents, often with spatial displacement of original residents and an associated shift in the demographic, social, and cultural fabric of neighborhoods under its influence” (Torrens and Nara, 2007);

Point 1.4.              “In Toronto and Vancouver, gentrification has been considered by some analysts to result from a ‘critical social movement’ that in order to escape the hegemony of the suburban lifestyle and all its trappings of ‘possessive individualism’, chose to move to the inner city in search of demographic diversity and an alternative life of ‘radical intellectual subculture’..” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 1.5.              “The word [gentrification] was made up by British sociologist Ruth Glass in the 1960s, when she observed an influx of ‘gentry’ – people more affluent and educated than their working-class neighbours and whom she presumed to be the offspring of the landed gentry – buying and renovating old mews and cottages in certain neighbourhoods in inner London” (Shaw, 2008);

Theme 2: Major underlying theories and thinking

Point 2.1.              “Two mainstream ideas predominate in the geographical literature: humanistic and Marxist approaches. Hamnett … summarizes the distinction between the two in terms of the difference between ‘‘the liberal humanists who stress the key role of choice, culture, consumption and consumer demand, and the structural Marxists who stress the role of capital, class, production and supply.”…” (Torrens and Nara, 2007);

Point 2.2.              “…it has been argued that gentrification has seen an extreme bifurcation of wealth and poverty and a dramatic realignment of class relations” (Pennay, Manton and Savic, 2014);

Point 2.3.               “Even though the city often loses the younger cohort of (re)settlers to the suburbs after they start families, it retains the physical improvements that they made to their residences, and also benefits from the upgrading investments of the returning empty-nesters. Housing rehabilitation, which is certainly the most visible evidence of gentrification, improves the city’s physical health by forestalling further decay of the housing stock and improves its fiscal health by boosting the property tax base” (Helms, 2003);

Point 2.4.               “… ‘rural gentrification’, a term which is widely understood to refer to processes whereby middle or service class households are moving into villages and displacing local, working class groups, and often in the process also refurbishing, extending and converting properties” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 2.5.              “…[rural] gentrification may obliterate natural spaces and habitats, as developers and others look to create new-build developments on green spaces within or adjacent to rural settlements. Such activities may themselves be robustly resisted by existing rural gentrifiers who view these developments as actively destroying the very features that attracted them to the residential location in the first place” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 2.6.               “In the context of rural gentrification, whilst this might popularly be conceived, and is widely represented in the media, as involving wealthy householders deciding that they want to move from the city into the countryside and refurbish an old property themselves, studies of rural gentrification have identified gentrification as occurring through a variety of forms” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 2.7.               “In studies of gentrification, authors distinguish between different actors: some of them driving the process, for example, ‘pioneers’ and gentrifiers, and others described as victims, such as displaced households …. As case studies indicate …., different social groups and corporate actors such as real estate agents …., investors, banks, public utility suppliers, local organisations of residents, urban planners, urban and national policy-makers, are also involved in the gentrification process” (Blasius, Friedrichs and Rühl, 2016);

Point 2.8.               “In the gentrification literature, a common distinction refers to the supply and the demand side. Studies of the supply side focus on theories such as rent gap and value gap or describe actions of urban and national policy-makers, real estate agents and investors. On the demand side authors analyse the actors involved in the process: gentrifiers. This group, however, as our review of the literature reveals, is neither clearly defined nor sufficiently differentiated to adequately investigate the process of gentrification” (Blasius, Friedrichs and Rühl, 2016);

Point 2.9.              “Smith … has argued that a gentrification process is inevitable if a growing ‘‘rent gap’’ has emerged between the potential value of the land and its existing use value. The size of the gap grows until it is possible for developers to move back to the inner city and profitably realize the underlying value of the land through renovation or redevelopment of the buildings” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 2.10.         “It can be of the traditional or classic form – that is, by individual gentrifiers renovating old housing through sweat equity or by hiring builders and interior designers and so leading to the embourgeoisement of a neighbourhood and the displacement of less wealthy residents. It is now also increasingly state-led with national and local governmental policy tied up in supporting gentrification initiatives” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 2.11.         “The irony is that gentrification proceeds most confidently in the places that need new investment least: gentrification-induced displacement is still so far from the reality of the heavily de-industrialised cities of Europe and rust belts of America, where governments are actively trying to promote ‘gentrification’ through urban regeneration projects in order to alleviate problems of crumbling infrastructure and miserable poverty” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 2.12.         “…while gentrification is very much a localised construct—the product of ‘the relationship between individual structures and lots and neighbourhood-scale dynamics in the land and housing markets’ …— it is also important to adopt a ‘wider purview’ … in which gentrification is seen as a manifestation of more generalised and indeed globalised processes of capitalist ‘uneven development’…” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 2.13.         “A key understanding is that gentrification requires social class transition, with the displacement of households with lesser power in the market place (and normally at city hall as well)” (Ley and Teo, 2014);

Point 2.14.         “Class change, rather than physical environment, is the defining feature of gentrification ….; that is, residents’ (and ex-residents’) class as well as class-based changes in neighbourhood characteristics (e.g. use of public spaces, cultural amenities, service provision) rather than physical characteristics (e.g. whether structures are preexisting, the area is residential and/or located in the inner city)” (Lemanski, 2014);

Point 2.15.         “Initially gentrification involved the renovation of older inner-city neighbourhoods in large white-collar cities by in-migrating young professionals, commonly of urbane left-liberal dispositions, often improving properties through their own sweat equity. Over time that sub-market has expanded to include more mature and wealthy professionals and managers, retired households with considerable property equity, national and international absentee investors, and even families with children. The housing stock has also diversified, with the addition of new-build condominiums and town houses constructed by national and international developers located not only in redeveloped residential neighbourhoods, but also in old industrial areas, office districts and other land uses” (Ley and Teo, 2014);

Point 2.16.         “It remains a sociological truism that ‘early’ gentrifiers not only help destroy the features that lured them to the inner city, but predicate their own displacement in turn” (Shaw, 2008);

Theme 3: Main research topics and issues

Point 3.1.              “Since 1980s, academics used to deal with gentrification as a haphazard process. While on 2000s, gentrification is no longer perceived as a haphazard process but rather a planned process. As urban neighbourhoods exposed to gentrification, physical, economic, social and cultural changes take place. Gentrification can also process reversely named as “Degentrification”. “ (Eldaidamony and Shetawy, 2016);

Point 3.2.               “At the risk of over-simplification, initially the conceptualisation debate [on gentrification] centred on two competing approaches. On the one hand there was the production (or supply) side theorisation involving the rent-gap theory of Smith …  It emphasised the process of investment (and disinvestment) in bringing about gentrification and, according to Davidson …  ‘has been central to the creation of globalised gentrified spaces’…  On the other hand there was the consumptive (or demand) side approach which placed greater emphasis on population, rather than financial, movement … …. Over time, however, these concepts have become viewed as complementary” (Stockdale, 2010);

Point 3.3.               “…..gentrification’s larger literature, produced by key scholars and recognised as an urban studies theme, provides great depth to the concept. In contrast, downward raiding is rarely the primary focus of research and certainly not considered an urban theme itself, having received virtually no theoretical critique or development, and thus their analysis is unequal. At their most basic, both concepts involve higher-income groups moving into lower income areas. Furthermore, both prioritise in-movers (gentry/raiders), representing a higher class/income than previous residents” (Lemanski, 2014);

Point 3.4.              “…gentrification and downward raiding refer to very similar processes of urban change, and the absence of prior comparison is surprising” (Lemanski, 2014);

Point 3.5.              “Neither gentrification nor downward raiding terminologies are commonly used to explain urban change in South Africa. This is not because these processes do not exist, but the explicit terms are rarely employed” (Lemanski, 2014);

Point 3.6.               “Clark suggests that ‘the collective efforts of gentrification researchers has given the world a chaotic conception’ as research has focused on complexity and contingency, arbitrarily lumping things together and dividing unnecessarily, as with the separation of rural and urban gentrification which, Clark argues, is ‘another bad abstraction that arbitrarily divides gentrification’ …” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 3.7.              “Most gentrification scholars are working now to identify new forms and cases of the process, especially as its reach becomes truly global” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 3.8.               “Gentrification is being found in more and more locations, but for Clark this might be more a reflection that researchers are looking to apply the concept of gentrification to more places rather than there has been a substantive spread in the processes of gentrification” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 3.9.              “Maloutas … has challenged the global reach of the concept of gentrification. The term, he observes, best describes a distinctive set of processes in large cities in Anglo-America, but it travels poorly outside that culture realm. Gentrification emerged and was named in a specific regional context and to extend its use is to practise ‘conceptual stretching’ that uncritically assumes that similar outcomes elsewhere in the world are the result of the same processes, when in fact local conditions add significant complexities” (Ley and Teo, 2014);

Point 3.10.          “The causes of gentrification have been the subject of debate from the moment the phenomenon was identified. Many commentators and scholars agree that the discussion must move on from the causes and effects of gentrification to what to do about it” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 3.11.         “The impact of gentrification on street drinking has been the subject of limited social and political discussion in Australia and elsewhere. However, there has been some attention to the way in which the issue of social class and street drinking has influenced urban design in the United Kingdom (UK)” (Pennay, Manton and Savic, 2014);

Point 3.12.         “There is general consensus, however, that the humanist and Marxist perspectives offer relatively translucent views of gentrification in isolation (Hamnett, 1991). An integrated explanation is needed, one that accommodates supply factors (the production of devalued areas and housing) and demand factors (the production of gentrifiers and their specific consumption and reproduction patterns)…” (Torrens and Nara, 2007);

Point 3.13.          “… one could argue that the literature on rural migration, and specifically counter urbanisation, has indirectly been investigating rural gentrification for some time but has largely failed to make this explicit conceptual link” (Stockdale, 2010);

Point 3.14.         “As cases of gentrification are increasingly documented across the globe …, researchers have also begun ‘to no longer restrict the term to processes located in the city centre’ …. Lees observed in 2003 that gentrification is increasingly used to refer to changes in suburbs and rural townships, and she expressed some alarm that this ‘myriad of forms’ made the meaning of the term ‘so expansive as to lose any conceptual sharpness and specificity’..” (Shaw, 2008);

Point 3.15.          “Some researchers viewed the characteristics of the gentrifiers to be of greater importance in the understanding of gentrification” (Phillips et al.. 2008);

Point 3.16.         “The importance of displacement as a defining characteristic of gentrification has also been debated. Some authors …. question its contemporary relevance” (Stockdale, 2010);

Point 3.17.         “Gentrification scholars …. [argue] that the media garner support for gentrification and divert attention from its costs … Many regard reporters, editors, and publishers as “important actors in promoting gentrification”..” (Brown-Saracino and Rumpf, 2011);

Point 3.18.         “While research affirms media influence on gentrifiers, a growing body of work raises the possibility that it no longer straightforwardly encourages a frontier and salvation framework, instead encouraging self-consciousness among some gentrifiers. As Neil Smith … acknowledges, there is some evidence that gentrification has become a “dirty word.” (Brown-Saracino and Rumpf, 2011);

Point 3.19.         “…the very term ‘gentrification’ identifies an even more specific location than Anglo-America, with language that reveals a distinctive British class and status formation. This word fits uncomfortably (if at all) in the United States whose social history involves a very different social hierarchy” (Ley and Teo, 2014);

Point 3.20.         “Gentrification disguised as ‘social mix’ serves as an excellent example of how the rhetoric and reality of gentrification has been replaced by a different discursive, theoretical and policy language that consistently deflects criticism and resistance” (Slater, 2006);

Point 3.21.         “Up until the late 1980s, very few, if any, scholarly articles celebrating gentrification existed. The academic literature was characterized by increasing theoretical sophistication as researchers tried to understand the causes of the process, and this was often in response to the clear injustice of the displacement of working-class residents, and the far from innocent role of both public and private institutions” (Slater, 2006);

Theme 4: Major trends and issues related to practices

Point 4.1.              “The current era of neoliberal urban policy, together with a drive towards homeownership, privatization and the break-up of ‘concentrated poverty’ …, has seen the global, state-led process of gentrification via the promotion of social or tenure ‘mixing’ (or ‘social diversity’ or ‘social balance’) in formerly disinvested neighbourhoods populated by working-class and/or low-income tenants” (Slater, 2006);

Point 4.2.              “…not all inner-city renovation activity is gentrification-based; much of it is performed by existing city residents. This “incumbent upgrading” is a relatively predictable and continual occurrence in historically stable areas” (Helms, 2003);

Point 4.3.              “Though gentrification did not herald the end of suburbanization, neither was it a transitory trend. It has steadily persisted, if not gathered momentum, over the past three decades. During this time, gentrification has revealed itself to be less often a one-way migration back to the city than a continual circulation through the city: as one demographer straightforwardly explained (about Chicago), “You’ve got all these 20-year-olds coming in, and all these 30-year-olds going out.”..” (Helms, 2003);

Point 4.4.               “Temporal changes in the form of rural gentrification have … been witnessed. For example, Smith and Phillips …. in their study of Hebden Bridge report an early stage whereby migrants purchased cheap run-down properties, often in remote areas, and renovated them using their sweat equity and a later stage, concentrated on the settlement itself, where developers provided new-build properties aimed at attracting managerial and professional groups” (Stockdale, 2010);

Point 4.5.               “…gentrification in Asia Pacific invariably produces landscapes of high-rise redevelopment. Renovation is extremely rare as a form of reinvestment, and is limited to leisure and tourist-based reconstructions, like the shop houses in Singapore … or the selective preservation of shikumen houses in Shanghai’s Xintiandi district” (Ley and Teo, 2014);

Each of the four themes has a set of associated points (i.e., idea, viewpoints, concepts and findings). Together they provide an organized way to comprehend the knowledge structure of the gentrification topic. The bolded key words in the quotation reveal, based on the writer’s intellectual judgement, the key concepts examined in the gentrification literature. The referencing indicated on the points identified informs the readers where to find the academic articles to learn more about the details on these points. Readers are also referred to the Literature on gentrification Facebook page for additional information on this topic. The process of conducting the thematic analysis is an exploratory as well as synthetic learning endeavour on the topic’s literature. Once the structure of the themes, sub-themes[1] and their associated points are finalized, the reviewer is in a position to move forward to step 2 of the MMBLR approach. The MMBLR approach step 2 finding, i.e., a companion mind map on gentrification, is presented in the next section.

Mind mapping-based literature review on gentrification: step 2 (mind mapping) output

By adopting the findings from the MMBLR approach step 1 on gentrification, the writer constructs a companion mind map shown as Figure 1.

Referring to the mind map on gentrification, the topic label is shown right at the centre of the map as a large blob. Four main branches are attached to it, corresponding to the four themes identified in the thematic analysis. The links and ending nodes with key phrases represent the points from the thematic analysis. The key phrases have also been bolded in the quotations provided in the thematic analysis. As a whole, the mind map renders an image of the knowledge structure on gentrification based on the thematic analysis findings. Constructing the mind map is part of the learning process on literature review. The mind mapping process is speedy and entertaining. The resultant mind map also serves as a useful presentation and teaching material. This mind mapping experience confirms the writer’s previous experience using on the MMBLR approach (Ho, 2016). Readers are also referred to the Literature on literature review Facebook page and the Literature on mind mapping Facebook page for additional information on these two topics.

Concluding remarks

The MMBLR approach to study gentrification provided here is mainly for its practice illustration as its procedures have been refined via a number of its employment on an array of topics (Ho, 2016). No major additional MMBLR steps nor notions have been introduced in this article. In this respect, the exercise reported here primarily offers some pedagogical value as well as some systematic and stimulated learning on gentrification in Housing Studies. Nevertheless, the thematic findings and the image of the knowledge structure on gentrification in the form of a mind map should also be of academic value to those who research on this topic.

Bibliography

1.      Blasius, J., J. Friedrichs and H. Rühl. 2016. “Pioneers and gentrifiers in the process of gentrification” International Journal of Housing Policy 16(1), Routledge: 50-69.

2.      Brown-Saracino, J. and C. Rumpf. 2011. “Diverse imageries of gentrification: Evidence from newspaper coverage in seven U.S. cities, 1986-2006” Journal of Urban Affairs 33(3): 289-315.

3.      Eldaidamony, M. and A. Shetawy. 2016. “Gentrification Indicators in the Historic City of Cairo” Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 225, Elsevier: 107-118.

4.      Helms, A.C. 2003. “Understanding gentrification: an empirical   analysis of the determinants of urban renovation” Journal of Urban Economics 54, Academic Press: 474-498.

5.      Ho, J.K.K. 2016. Mind mapping for literature review – a ebook, Joseph KK Ho publication folder October 7 (url address: http://josephkkho.blogspot.hk/2016/10/mind-mapping-for-literature-review-ebook.html).

6.      Lemanski, C. 2014. “Hybrid gentrification in South Africa: Theorising across southern and northern cities” Urban Studies 51(14), Sage: 2943-2960.

7.      Ley, D. and S.Y. Teo. 2014. “Gentrification in Hong Kong? Epistemology vs.  Ontology” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38(4) July: 1286-303.

8.      Literature on gentrification Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.gentrification/).

9.      Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

10. Literature on mind mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.mind.mapping/).

11. Pennay, A., E. Manton and M. Savic. 2014. “Geographies of exclusion: Street drinking, gentrification and contests over public space” International Journal of Drug Policy 25, Elsevier: 1084-1093.

12. Phillips, M., S. Page, E. Saratsi, K. Tansey and K. Moore. 2008. “Diversity, scale and green landscape in the gentrification process: Traversing ecological and social science perspectives” Applied Geography 28, Elsevier: 54-76.

13. Shaw, K. 2008. “Gentrification: What It Is, Why It Is, and What Can Be Done about It” Geography Compass 2/8, Blackwell Publishing: 1697-1728.

14. Slater, T. 2006. “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(4) December: 737-757.

15. Stockdale, A. 2010. “The diverse geographies of rural gentrification in Scotland” Journal of Rural Studies 26, Elsevier: 31-40.

16. Torrens, P.M. and A. Nara. 2007. “Modeling gentrification dynamics: A hybrid approach” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 31, Elsevier: 337-361.

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[1] There is no sub-theme generated in this analysis on gentrification.