The Death and Life of Gentrification by Japonica Brown-Saracino

We are excited to welcome Japonica Brown-Saracino for an event to celebrate the release of The Death and Life of Gentrification. For this event, Japonica will be joined in conversation with Teresa Gonzales.

A provocative account of what is gained and what is lost when a word that once narrowly referred to neighborhood change takes on a life all its own

Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in the 1960s to mark the displacement of working-class residents in London neighborhoods by the professional classes. The Death and Life of Gentrification traces how the word has far outgrown Glass's meaning, becoming a socially charged metaphor for cultural appropriation, upscaling, and the loss of authenticity.

In this lively and insightful book, Japonica Brown-Saracino traces how a concept originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighborhoods has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities. She describes how journalists, artists, filmmakers, novelists, and academics use gentrification as a symbolic device to mourn how everyday pleasures and forms of self-expression--from music to marijuana, kale, and tattoos--entered the domain of the elite. She weighs the implications of turning to gentrification as a tool to tell stories, entertain audiences, and communicate political messages. Relying on vivid examples, the book reveals how the term today expresses widespread ambivalence about rising economic inequality and unease with a variety of forms of social change. This pathbreaking book forces us to think about whether the wide-ranging way we use gentrification dilutes its meaning and stymies efforts to identify and resist urban displacement.

Drawing on everything from film and television to novels and art, The Death and Life of Gentrification sheds critical light on the changing meaning of gentrification in contemporary life. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in gentrification and urban dynamics, as well as for readers curious about attitudes about growing income inequality and the evolution and circulation of ideas.

Japonica Brown-Saracino is a regular commentator for major news organizations such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Atlantic and is the award-winning author of A Neighborhood that Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity and How Places Make Us: Novel LBQ Identities in Four Small Cities. She is professor of sociology and women’s, gender, and sexualities studies at Boston University, where she serves as faculty fellow at the Initiative on Cities.

­A native of Mexican Chicago, Prof. Teresa Irene Gonzales firmly believes in the capacity of sociology to redress social injustices and inequalities. As a feminist, and a woman of color urbanist, she is rooted in community-engaged pedagogy and scholarship and strives toward a practice of reciprocity in research. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees from the University of California Berkeley in Sociology, and her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in Latin American & Latina/o Studies with a focus on literature and history. She is the recipient of several national prestigious awards and fellowships, including from the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (previously the Woodrow Wilson Foundation), the NASEM Ford Foundation, and the MMUF program. Her work is situated at the intersections of feminist, urban, and organizational theories with a focus on race, gender, class, and structural racism. She has over ten years of experience with analyzing community responses to racial and income marginalization in the United States, with several publications. Gonzales’ work has appeared in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Rural Sociology, Social Problems, and on Academic Minute. She has shared her work at academic conferences, through invited talks, and in more accessible platforms including academic blogs, YouTube interviews, and public radio segments. As part of her commitment to eradicating income- and race-disparities, she has worked with community organizations in Illinois and Massachusetts.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other access needs please email .

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