Gentrification Analysis

Gentrification analysis is the set of methods used to detect, measure, and map the process by which a previously disinvested, lower-income neighbourhood is upgraded through an influx of capital and higher-status residents, often displacing the existing population. It typically combines repeated small-area census data on income, education, tenure, and rents with housing-market indicators to compute change indices that flag where socioeconomic status is rising fastest. Grounded in Neil Smith's 1979 rent-gap theory, the analysis frames gentrification as the reinvestment of capital in places where the gap between actual and potential land rent has grown large enough to be profitable.