Moving out or moving in? Resilience to environmental gentrification in New York City.

Dooling [2009. Ecological gentrification: a research agenda exploring justice in the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33 (3), 621–639] and Quastel [2009. Political ecologies of gentrification. Urban Geography, 30 (7), 694–725] reveal several ways in which urban sustainability efforts can produce gentrification, resulting in displacement and financial burden for the most vulnerable urban denizens. In the absence of adequate procedural justice measures, their studies suggest that long-time and vulnerable residents are negatively affected by urban sustainability efforts. However, some residents are able to remain in their neighbourhoods, and this study employs a resilience framework to explore what enables residents to resist displacement in three gentrifying neighbourhoods in New York City. Analysis of 42 interviews with residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn uncovers the multiple strategies residents use to adapt to an increasingly expensive urban environment. The case studies detailed in this paper highlight the multidimensional and context-specific nature of resilience, as well as the multiple scales at which resilience manifests. Gentrification, while reducing resilience at some scales, has not reduced resilience at all scales. Individual-level coping strategies emerge as an important characteristic of resilience during this period of gentrification. This study highlights the connections between scale and resilience and indicates how a better understanding of resilience can further contest the disruptive and socially unjust process of gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]