Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
New-build gentrifi cation (Boddy, 2007; Davidson and Lees, 2005) refers to the construc-
tion of upscale housing (and urban public spaces and commercial services) in inner urban
areas and most notably on brownfi eld sites. This applies to many fl agship cultural and tourism
projects, including iconic museum projects and hotel developments. New-build develop-
ments question the historic built environment of gentrifi cation and are often juxtaposed with
classic gentrifi cation. New-build gentrifi cation witnesses reinvestment of capital, creating a
gentrifi ed landscape which causes indirect or socio-cultural displacement; in-movers are the
urbane middle classes (see Davidson and Lees, 2005; Mills, 1988; Visser and Kotze, 2008 for
case studies). However, pre-existing populations are not displaced, as the process does not
involve the restoration of old housing and a different version of urban living is produced
(Davidson and Lees, 2005; Boddy, 2007). This new-build gentrifi cation literature illustrates
how a distinction can no longer be made between classical gentrifi cation and new-build
gentrifi cation as both represent the 'class remake of the central urban landscape' (Smith, 1996:
39; also Lees
et al.
, 2008).
Furthermore, in the urban context, 'studentifi cation' has been coined (Smith, D., 2002,
2005, 2008) to refer to the process of social, cultural, economic and environmental change
effected by large numbers of students invading particular areas of towns and cities in which
universities are located, and typically the inner cities and city centres of these (see also Russo
and Arias-Sans, 2007).
Perhaps the fi rst derivative of gentrifi cation was the term 'rural gentrifi cation' or 'green-
trifi cation' (Smith and Phillips, 2001). The term refers to the gentrifi cation of rural areas, the
link between new middle-class in-migration and the social, economic and cultural transfor-
mation of the rural landscape, plus the subsequent displacement of lower-income groups
(Lees
et al.
, 2008). In redressing what is arguably an urban bias in gentrifi cation studies,
Phillips (2004) called for the addition of non-urban geographies to the fi eld of gentrifi cation,
which led to further research on, for example, counterurbanisation as rural gentrifi cation
(Darling, 2005; Hines, 2010a; Phillips, 2010). Some of these studies have begun to acknowl-
edge rural gentrifi cation's inevitable and often volatile relationship to tourism development
(Hines, 2010b; Solana Solana, 2010). Particularly relevant for this chapter is Hines' recent
work on rural gentrifi cation in Montana, USA as 'permanent tourism' (2010b), involving the
immigration of relatively young, ex-urban members of the post-industrial middle classes -
rural gentrifi ers enacting cultural projects that are akin to those of tourists but doing so with
the intention of permanently writing them into the social and physical landscape (Hines,
2010b: 509). There is also a signifi cant body of literature on second homes, retirement migra-
tion and tourism gentrifi cation which is very relevant to this topic, whereby rural gentrifi ca-
tion shares the more urban characteristics of gentrifi cation in cities (see Hall and Müller,
2004; Casado-Diaz,
Chapter 15 o
f this volume).
Finally, and of particular interest to this chapter, 'tourism gentrifi cation' was a term used
by Gotham (2005) in a case study of the social and spatial transformation of New Orleans'
Vieux Carré (French Quarter). We might conceptualise tourism gentrifi cation in one of two
ways: (a) as the transformation of a neighbourhood into a relatively affl uent and exclusive
enclave in which corporate entertainment and tourism venues have proliferated; or (b) as the
more recent proliferation of tourism in neighbourhoods with no particular tourism infra-
structure, where consumption is geared to 'everyday life' and 'atmosphere'. Gotham (2005)
argued that the growth of tourism has enhanced the signifi cance of consumption-oriented
activities in residential space in cities and encouraged gentrifi cation. He also argued (2005:
1114) that the gentrifi cation that emerges is both commercial and residential and refl ects new
institutional connections between local institutions, the real estate industry and the global
