In Shanghai, globalised urban images and a
well-functioning accumulation regime are
enthusiastically sought after by urban policy,
and explicitly promoted as a blueprint for a
civilised city life. The city is celebrating its
thriving neo-liberal urbanism by
implementing enormous new-build
gentrification, mostly in the form of
demolition–rebuild development involving
direct displacement of residents and
landscapes. This study aims to understand
demographic changes and the socioeconomic
consequences of new-build gentrification in
central Shanghai. The paper first examines
demographic changes between 1990 and 2000
in central Shanghai, i.e. the changing
distribution of potential gentrifiers and
displacees. It then looks into two cases of
new-build gentrification projects in central
Shanghai, to compare residents’
socioeconomic profiles in old neighbourhoods
and new-build areas. This study also examines
the impacts of gentrification on displacees’
quality of life and socioeconomic prospects.
Because the enlarging middle class and the
pursuit of wealth-induced growth by the
municipal government are turning the central
city into a hotspot of gentrification,
inequalities in housing and socioeconomic
prospects are being produced and intensified
in the metropolitan area. This study thus
emphasises that critical perspectives in gentrification research are valuable and
indispensable.