What is happening in urban centers and in many other historic neighborhoods of cities in Europe, North America and other continents? Why has this wave of urban regeneration operations produced with such extremely chic results? Can this process be terminated within the framework of the current financial-real estate crisis? What does the remodeling of urban centers mean for people living in them?

This book, now the classic study on
gentrification, reveals with strong lucidity the strong
dependence on urban transformation processes on the dynamics of capital accumulation over the territory. Oblivious to all complacency with middle-class tastes and lifestyles, which normally justify pro-gentrification policies, Smith crudely shows his obvious social effects: population displacement with
lower resources, banalization and musealization of
urban centers, subordination of urban policies to the benefit of promoters and financial entities, spatial segregation, criminalization of poverty and the homeless, etc. In this field, his analysis is not only convergent with movements such as squatting and democratization of access to housing, but also extremely useful for any approach that claims the
Right to the city.