Gentrification and its catalysts
Salutations! I’m in the early stages of developing a video essay that’s analyzing the transformation of a fictional town through the lens of gentrification, and discussing how this perspective lends itself to greater themes in the story the town is from. However, even though I feel like I can make a case for the phenomenon I’ve observed in this story being gentrification, I’m struggling to find sources that describe it with the same catalyst.
Most of the definitions of gentrification I’m finding describe it as high-income residents slowly moving into and displacing low-income neighborhoods—in the process, certain kinds of businesses may follow suit and change the overall culture of a community. In the story I’m analyzing, the catalyst is a corporation which reshapes the town in its image while devastating its population. I’m almost certain this is a form of gentrification, but I’m looking for real life examples of this kind of thing happening that explicitly call it that.