Introduction: the aesthetics of neighborhood change

Berglund, Lisa; Gregory, Siobhan

doi:10.4324/9781003019596-1

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…It is significant for Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal-three cities confronting intensifications of gentrification processes that have already been underway for several decades-that platformized urban presences are co-implicated with changes in the visual materialities encountered on streetscapes across neighbourhoods whose status in urban spatial hierarchies continues to shift. As recent scholarly attentions have started to take seriously the aesthetics of gentrification (e.g., Baginski and Malcolm 2019;Berglund and Gregory 2019;Summers 2019;Lindner and Sandoval 2021), we hope for this intervention to be a catalyst for work in this vein to further consider how platforms may be contributing to the aesthetics-and anaesthetics-of transitioning and transitioned neighbourhoods both within and beyond the Canadian urban context.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wachsmuth andWeisler (2018, 1147) term these distortions of rental housing markets "gentrification through the rent gap," which describes residential displacement that occurs as extant inhabitants of neighbourhoods are priced out of enclaves as property owners convert or divert LTR units into STRs in order to capitalize on the potential of higher revenues. Yet as Monahan (2021) (Glow et al 2014, 419), including consumption activities beyond real estate, visual and aural aesthetics, and urban amenities (e.g., Centner 2008;Berglund and Gregory 2019;Delgado 2020;Lindner and Sandoval 2021;Summers 2021Summers , 2019). Yet save for Monahan's (2021) very recent foregrounding of STRs' significance for gentrification beyond their housing market effects, these efforts at theorizing gentrification outside of preoccupations with residential factors have not yet substantively considered the role and importance of digital platforms in processes of neighbourhood change, nor how the platformization of cities may represent an urban adaptation that responds to advantaged, techsavvy urbanites' spatial interests.…”

Section: More Recently Platform Urbanism Scholarship Has Pivoted In E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gentrification and the an/aesthetics of digital spatial capital in Canadian “platform cities”

Leszczynski

Kong

2021

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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Material presences that cue interaction with digital platforms are concentrated in gentrified, gentrifying, and gentrifiable neighbourhoods in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, while being largely absent from established affluent enclaves.• Platformized materialities cue expenditures of digital spatial capital-the capacity to stake claims to space through digital technologies-in the urban spaces where they are visually encountered. • Digital platforms glamorize everyday consumption practices and decouple acts of consumption from face-to-face interactions in ways that fit the spatial, lifestyle, and self-actualization ambitions of advantaged, tech-savvy urban dwellers.This paper reports on the findings of an empirical study of the street-level visual spatialities of urban platforms in three Canadian cities: Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Enumerating, typologizing, and spatially analyzing incidences of platforms in these three cities, we find platforms to be concentrated in neighbourhoods classified as "gentrified," "gentrifying," and "gentrifiable," while being largely absent from established affluent enclaves. We theorize the significance of these spatialities in three ways. First, we suggest that the emplaced visibility of platforms functions to cue expenditures of digital spatial capital-the ability to stake claims to space through engagements with digital technologies-in neighbourhoods where these platformized materialities are visually encountered. Second, we argue that these expenditures of spatial capital are associated with the ways in which platforms glamorize mundane urban consumption practices (the aestheticization of consumption) while decoupling acts of consumption from face-to-face interaction (the anaestheticization of social relations). And third, we identify propositions for how these an/aesthetic dynamics may potentially influence the further densification of platforms on city streets in transitioned (gentrified) and transitional (gentrifying and gentrifiable) urban enclaves.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: More Recently Platform Urbanism Scholarship Has Pivoted In E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gentrification and the an/aesthetics of digital spatial capital in Canadian “platform cities”

Leszczynski

Kong

2021

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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“…However, as Zukin (2011: 203) notes, ‘aesthetics always play a crucial role in constructing not just the habitat, but the habitus of gentrification’. Place‐marketing strategies typically offer a sanitized version of a gritty, hip place to attract more affluent, often younger, newcomers (Kinney, 2016; Berglund and Gregory, 2019; Gregory, 2019). Various placemaking strategies such as street art and food trucks, which have been appropriated from poorer and racialized populations (Berglund, 2019), often appeal to a nostalgic, deracialized cultural past that can serve to intensify class–race segregation (Bond and Browder, 2019).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%