Sustaining multicultural places from gentrified homogenisation of cities

According to Lefebvre's analysis, urbanisation is not only an expansion of urban footprint but, in a broader sense, the radical socio-spatial transformation of society. The cultural setting and its physical manifestation creating distinctive identities within a city are transformed by rapid urbanisation and gentrification. The effects will be analysed in three terms of simultaneous sociocultural-spatial changes; cultural displacement, physical transformation of neighbourhoods, and change in cultural identities. The paper intends to hypothesise whether cultural displacement and altering cultural identities by gentrification and rapid urbanisation will signify gentrified homogenised cities in the future. The paper investigates aspects of multiculturalism and inter-culturalism to mitigate the challenges in sustaining multicultural places in cities. It tries to find the complementary approach of both to generate harmonious multicultural diversities and socio-economic sustainability, keeping the cultural identities intact. One of the examples of rapid urbanisation and gentrification challenging multicultural aspects and altering cultural identities lies in the core of the cultural capital of India, Kolkata in Tangra, Chinatown. The cultural identity of India's only existing Chinatown is changing from 2 to 3 storey live-work based multicultural communities to 30 floors high-rise homogenous gentrified enclaves displacing the diverse cultural communities from the core of the city.