Configurations of gentrification and displacement: chronic displacement as an effect of redevelopment in Seoul, South Korea

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, gentrification scholarship has expanded to include larger and more diverse processes. At the same time, definitions of residential displacement have expanded from direct economic and physical displacement to include indirect price shadowing and the loss of a sense of place. These developments have complicated how scholars understand the relationship between gentrification and displacement, particularly as they apply to diverse gentrification processes. The paper uses metropolitan-scale redevelopment in Seoul and its attendant displacement patterns to interrogate this relationship. Analyses of the regulatory regimes, agents of change, and social geographies of redevelopment are combined with survey and interview data from displaced residents to demonstrate the relationship between metropolitan-scale redevelopment and the process of repeat and chronic displacement in Seoul. To more effectively conceptualize gentrification’s displacement impacts, more attention must be paid to investigating the complex relationship between varying development processes and the displacement they engender.

KEYWORDS:

• Gentrification
• redevelopment
• displacement
• Seoul
• urban renewal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Yangdon was an informal settlement in Hagye-Dong, Nowon-Gu in Northeastern Seoul.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fulbright Association [E0570582].