soc paper

Joy Marie Prior, February 4, 2009, Sociology 112, Section 4, Article Essay
Adam Millard-Ball’s thesis is that rent gap and value gap theories do not sufficiently illustrate how gentrification occurs in Stockholm, Sweden due to possibly tenure conversion, redevelopment of complexes, luxury renovations, or co-operatives. Some key terms that he uses are ‘Gentrification’, which he defined as the social and physical upgrade of a residential neighborhood; ‘rent gap,’ the property-specific prediction that rent prices increase as housing prices increase in a specific neighborhood, typically resulting with the displacement of the poorer class who once rented there; ‘value gap,’ a less place-dependent and more time-specific idea that individual property value can increase as the value of adjacent properties increases; and ‘utility value system’ or ‘rent control,’ is laws that prohibit private landlords to charge more rent than a set price negotiated between municipal housing companies and tenants’ association typically resulting in little variation between rent prices across a given area (such as in the case of Stockholm, Sweden). Adam’s research is collected from Stockholm city statistical office and it’s housing finance of co-operatives including both random and non-random surveys of Stockholm’s housing market. Adam’s line of argument is that one of the key components of explaining gentrification is answering what caused the upgrading of the neighborhood. The traditional explanation for gentrification is rent and value gap; these explanations rely on capitalized land rent. Because of Stockholm’s rent control laws rent is relatively equal throughout the city, but gentrification is evident as the city becomes more post-industrial based. Studies support possibly tenure conversion, redevelopment of complexes, luxury renovations, or co-operatives as the force driving the lower class out of inner city Stockholm. Adam notes education and flat size would better indicate a social upgrade in Sweden verses strictly income . The conclusion is researchers should expand their theoretical framework for gentrification to something more universal than simple rent gap and value gap theories.
I agree with Adam Millard-Ball’s opinion that a variety of cities and their economies should be considered before concluding that the rent and value gaps are the only possible explanations of gentrification. Adam explains how Stockholm, Sweden’s economy differs from London, England’s. The brief overview helped me understand how many economical variables there are from city to city. In a free housing market (which is the economical system of cities that the rent gap and value gap theories evolved from) such factors as co-operatives, luxury renovations, or tenure would never be considered components of gentrification simply because they are not a part of free market economy. Just as the authors of the rent and value gap theories based their explanations of gentrification on factors specific to London’s economy Adam based his assumptions of gentrification in Stockholm on factors specific to Stockholm. To me it is logical that a city’s unique economical factors will be the components of gentrification for that city, and not a cookie cutter theory.

Millard-Ball, Adam. 2000. “Moving Beyond the Gentrification Gaps: Social Change, Tenure Change and Gap Theories in Stockholm.” Urban Studies 37(9);1673-
1693.