Embourgeoisement, Elitization and Gentrification: Addressing three expressions to describe urban processes and a neighborhood's case

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 4. Exploring Gentrification

Abstract

This paper is a work-in-progress discussion about urban processes in middle-class neighborhoods located in large cities. Its empirical field is Floresta – a neighborhood located in the city of Belo Horizonte. This paper addresses – through qualitative and quantitative data – Floresta's embourgeoisement process in which lower-income residents left leading to the conformation of a predominantly middle-class neighborhood. Historical documents indicate that the neighborhood has gradually changed over time. If it was initially inhabited by more diverse social groups, nowadays residents are predominantly middle class, as quantitative data allows to demonstrate. Other than dealing with the specific dynamics of Floresta and Belo Horizonte, this paper points out review on gentrification, embourgeoisement and elitization regarding their basis, definitions, advantages and disadvantages. However the scope of this paper isn't theoretical review, I highlight how literature has addressed each of those three names for urban processes focusing on advantages and disadvantages of using differrent expressions to describe similar phenomena. The purpose of this discussion about gentrification, embourgeoisement and elitization is to draw attention to the diversity of terms used to describe contemporary urban processes and the specificities of each of these terms, noting their origins and connections with social classes, as well as historical, geographic, and socioeconomic conditions. In this sense, it is significant to consider translations and adaptations in order to avoid carelessness in the naming and identification of phenomena, as well as to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the use of terms both for contextual questions of urban investigations and for the constitution of the global literature on the theme of urban processes.

Author

• Clarissa dos Santos Veloso