Taming a ‘Chaotic Concept’:Gentrification and Segmented Consumption in Brooklyn, 2002-2012

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Consumption and the City

Abstract

Public debate and prior scholarship tend to emphasize the link between gentrification and high-end chain retail, underscoring the importance of taste cultures tied to social class in making sense of gentrification’s impact on neighborhood identity. In this study, we present evidence from ten years of change in the businesses of Brooklyn, New York City, a period of extensive gentrification across a wide variety of neighborhood and census-tract level contexts. Adopting census tracts clustered in neighborhoods as the units of analysis, we model the effects of institutional and demographic change on two separate outcomes: chain retail density and homogeneity in the types of goods and services available. We argue that changes in consumer culture embedded in broader processes of gentrification are neither “chaotic” nor “unitary” but are “segmented” according to local spatial and demographic context, taking two discrete forms: institutionally-facilitated corporatization; lifestyle-driven homogenization.

Author

• Michael Owen Benediktsson, City University of New York-Hunter College