Magazine

Gentrification has transformed few American cities more profoundly than New York. A nexus of wealth, culture and immigration, New York is a city of contested neighborhoods: Today’s immigrant quarter is tomorrow’s bohemian playground and the next high-rent district. Gentrification is so familiar to New Yorkers that it seems a natural part of the city itself: the neighborhood’s circle of life.

And yet “gentrification” remains a difficult term to define. Like pornography, we know it when we see it: White people move into a black neighborhood. Artists repopulate skid row. Industrial buildings are repurposed and renovated. Commerce adjusts to more affluent residents. Longtime residents protest evictions. New York magazine does a cover story.