Date and time
Thursday 7 May 2026, 4 – 5.30 pm UK time
Location
Room CBG.2.06, Centre Building, Houghton Street, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE
The Death and Life of Gentrification
Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in the 1960s to mark the displacement of working-class residents in London neighbourhoods by the professional classes. Brown-Saracino will trace how the word has far outgrown Glass’s meaning, becoming a socially charged metaphor for cultural appropriation, upscaling, and the loss of authenticity.
Relying on a documentary film and a television series, she will chart how a concept originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighbourhoods has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities. She will weigh the implications of turning to gentrification as a tool to tell stories, entertain audiences, and communicate political messages.
The book foregrounds film as a situated and embodied practice of inquiry that intervenes in how urbanisation is made visible and intelligible. Attending to sensory, temporal, and affective registers, the contributions unsettle dominant visual regimes and open space for alternative urban imaginaries and modes of engagement.
The book talk will encourage debate about whether the wide-ranging way we use gentrification opens new communicative possibilities or stymies efforts to identify and resist urban displacement.
This event is in collaboration with the Department of Geography and Environment, LSE.
Meet our speaker, discussants and chair
Japonica Brown-Saracino is Professor of Sociology and WGS at Boston University, where she also chairs the Department of Sociology and is a Faculty Fellow at the Initiative on Cities. She is the author of A Neighborhood That Never Changes and How Places Make Us, and editor of The Gentrification Debates. Her newest book is The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea.
Zheng Wang is currently Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Cities at the department of Geography, King’s College London. Zheng is an urban planner specialising in the politics and long-term social consequences of urban (re)development. Zheng is also an associate editor of Transactions in Planning and Urban Research. His research has been funded by the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council. As part of a research consortium, Zheng’s latest research investigates how residents can be empowered within state-sponsored housing projects in India, South Africa and China. From August 2026, Zheng will be joining the Department of Geography and Environment, LSE, as an Associate Professor in Urban Planning.
Hyun Bang Shin is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies and Head of the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE. Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK, Professor Shin has contributed to reshaping the understanding of contemporary urban transformation, emphasising the socio-political dynamics of cities in rapidly developing regions, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. From 2018 to 2023, he served as Director of theSaw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at LSE, fostering interdisciplinary research on Asia. He was the Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from 2021 to 2024 and a trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation from 2016 to 2023, contributing to global urban scholarship and mentorship. Since 2009, he has co-organised The Urban Salon, a London-based forum for architecture, cities, and international urbanism.
Registration
This event is free and open to all, but registration is required (click here).
More about this event
The Department of Geography and Environment is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.
The Urban Salon is a London-based forum for architecture, cities, and international urbanism.
