International Rural Gentrification

This project will deliver the first in-depth examination of the cross-national rural geographies of both the concept and phenomenon of gentrification, through an integrated comparative study of the theory, forms and dynamics of gentrification across rural France, UK and USA. The project aims to investigate the salience of rural gentrification as a concept that is capable of explaining rural change in France, the UK and the USA. As a starting point, the project draws upon the concept of 'sociologies of translation' to understand past and current differential meanings and uses of the term rural gentrification within academic, policy and popular discourses in France, UK and USA. An asset-based theorisation of rural gentrification will be developed to create empirical indicators of the presence and use of social assets within rural gentrification. Using these empirical indicators and comparable measures of rural, urban and peri-urban spaces, census and other national datasets will be mapped to analyse the geographies of gentrification in rural France, UK and USA, and to develop a typology of rural gentrification. Using this typology, detailed comparative studies of rural gentrification spanning a contrasting range of rural regions and rural settlement areas within France, UK and USA will be undertaken using comparable interviews, surveys, and focus groups.

Who will benefit from this research?
As noted in the Case for Support, there are four potential beneficiaries of this research: namely academics, rural policy makers, the media, and residents within rural communities. This last group includes people who are running or working in rural businesses, as well as people who may commute to urban areas for work or education, are retired or have undertake no paid employment.

How will they benefit from this research?
Each of the potential audiences of the research can accrue benefits as outlined below.

Academic community. See Academic Beneficiaries section.

Rural policy makers. Benefits will include:
- A publicly accessible database of policy literatures in the UK, USA and France that make reference to the concept of rural gentrification;
- A comparative classification of rural areas in the UK, France and USA;
- Maps of the presence and extent of rural across the UK, France and USA;
- In-depth studies of the causes and consequences of rural gentrification;
- Workshop discussions on the relevance of gentrification to rural planning and policy, the identification and mapping of rural gentrification, and the causes and consequences of rural gentrification.

The media. Benefits will include:
- A publicly accessible database of newspaper articles, public blogs and webpages relating to the concept of rural gentrification since the 1970s covering the UK, France and USA
- Publicly available working papers, articles and maps detailing the presence, form, processes and consequences of rural gentrification in the UK, France and USA.

Residents of the rural communities. Benefits to those involved in the study, and potentially to other people living in or with businesses in rural communities, include:
- Increased awareness of the extent, potential drivers and consequences of change within rural communities;
- Improved awareness of the diversity of migrational streams into the countryside and the presence of economic and cultural assets that might foster rural development and businesses;
- Heightened understanding of environmental and social impacts of own and other people's lifestyles.

What will be done to ensure that they benefit from this research?
The project will involve:
- Establishment of 3 nationally constituted advisory committees that include experts on rural development, rural planning and media representations of rural space and social change;
- Workshops at major national and international conferences in the UK, France and USA with academics and planning practitioners (to include representatives of public sector planners and private/third sector organisations with interests in rural development such as, in the UK, the British Property Federation, CPRE, CLA, Countryside Alliance and Rural Housing Trust);
- Creation of policy briefings on the concept of gentrification and its relevance to rural planning and policy, the identification and mapping of rural gentrification; and the causes and consequences of rural gentrification (to be circulated at national planning conferences, as well as available as downloads from the project website and details of availability circulated by email to all rural local authorities in France, UK and USA);
- Establishment of a project web-site containing a downloadable copy of an Endnote database in both French and English, a selection of key texts and abstracts of the top 10 cited rural gentrification references by authors based in France, UK and USA, plus project working papera produced in English and French;
- Contextual interviews with local community organisations and planners in case study regions and feedback focus groups with residents in case-study settlement areas;
- An end of project conferences in London, Paris and Washington DC. to which academics, rural planning practioners, media representative and residents from case-studies settlements will be invited.
- Dissemination through academic publications.