deeply researched an insightful, this is a must-read for people moving into new, developing neighborhoods. a great guide through an issue people often ignore because it's uncomfortable.

An excellent work that speaks to the changes that are made in neighborhoods around the United States...changes that are problematic for those living in poverty-stricken areas who sell low so the people they sell to can sell high. The argument about class is the most interesting...but the book speaks about things like taste, displacement, race, and other things associated with what has become a scourge that needs to be looked at more closely.

I began reading this book thinking I was well educated on gentrification, and while that may be true, this book still informed me of so many things I was previously unaware of. Well written, easy to read, I’ll definitely be getting my own physical copy!

4.5 STARS
Thank you to NetGalley and Verso for the e-book! Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies begins with Leslie Kern explaining the origins of gentrification in north London. With emphasis on the change of language, Kern shows that the way language has been changed to make the act seem less as harmful and more beneficial to communities by using terminology in the vein of ‘urban renewal’ and ‘revitalization’ to name a few. Analyzing connections between gentrification and culture, money, class, communities and more, she challenges readers to dismantle the ‘common sense’ train of thought that it is inevitable. In connection to other works on the topic, I was glad to see reference to Sarah Sculman’s The Gentrification of the Mind, another great read on the topic. I highly recommend!

Kern, author of the much-loved Feminist City, provides a thorough and extremely thoughtful intersectional analysis of gentrification, particularly through the lens of decolonization. I learned so much, but without being bored to death.

I included this title in my summer/fall preview for Book & Film Globe: https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nine-books-to-escape-with-for-fall/

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I read this book on a Friday afternoon, at the end of a week when I started taking hot-girl walks on my lunch hour through Brownstone Brooklyn, and had been counting and ratioing “colonizer” vs “Old Brooklyn” sightings. Ratio not looking good for Brooklyn. I read this book on the balcony of my apartment in Queens in a neighborhood that is undergoing a settler but still significant gentrification, thinking about how lucky I was that my landlord had not raised the rent to market rates, while recognizing my arrival 11 years ago may have spearheaded those rates. I ate my organic. arugula and goat cheese while thinking about how I as a mother, social worker and renter fit into the paradigm this book lays out. Like the author, I am white middle mom who made this place my home to find a cheaper way to raise my kids in an expensive city, opening the flood gates for yoga studios, drag brunch, and oat milk lattes. I see the violence of gentrification each day as a New Yorker. She’s right about everything, and this is a great book for people who may not have already been thinking on this path, but it doesn’t present much of a solution for those of us in the “first wave” who are barely hanging on as it is. I can’t tell if I’m her ideal reader, or not her audience at all. This arc will definitely go to check out her other books, so there’s that.