A neighborhood that never changes : gentrification, social preservation, and the search for authenticity / Japonica Brown-Saracino.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown-Saracino, Japonica.

Series:

Fieldwork encounters and discoveries

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gentrification--United States--Case studies.

Gentrification.

United States.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

xvii, 334 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Summary:

Newcomers to older neighborhoods are usually perceived as destructive, but as A Neighborhood That Never Changes demonstrates, many gentrifiers seek to preserve the authentic local flavor of their new homes, rather than ruthlessly remake them. Drawing won ethnographic research in four distinct communities-the Chicago neighborhoods of Andersonville and Argyle and the New England towns of Provincetown and Dresden-Japonica Brown-Saracino paints a colorful portrait of how residents new and old, from wealthy gay homeowners to Portuguese fishermen, think about gentrification.

The new breed of gentrifiers, Brown-Saracino finds, exhibits an acute self-consciousness about their role in the process and works to minimize gentrification's risks for certain longtime residents. In an era of rapid change, they cherish the unique and fragile, whether a dilapidated house, a two-hundred-year-old landscape, or the presence of people deeply rooted in the place they live. Contesting many long-standing assumptions about gentrification, Brown-Saracino's absorbing study reveals the unexpected ways beliefs about authenticity, place, and change play out in the social, political, and economic lives of very different neighborhoods.

Contents:

The research sites and methods

Beyond pioneering: social homesteaders as uneasy gentrifiers

Social preservation

The varying strategies of social preservation

The real people: selecting the authentic old-timer

Locating social preservation

Self-representation: old-timers' perspectives.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226076621

0226076628

9780226076638

0226076636

OCLC:

317777888