Post-Socialist Gentrifications

The paper aims at advancing research on post-socialist gentrifications beyond comparison to the West by providing a comparative study of gentrification in two inner-city neighbourhoods in East Germany and Poland. We address two research gaps: First, we analyse the differences between two post-socialist gentrifications on the basis of a common framework that centres on the institutional environment for reinvestment, displacement and gentrification. Second, we pay particular emphasis to the different roles of the state and analyse how gentrification is embedded into different institutional environments. On this basis, we argue that gentrifications in post-socialist countries are “similar” because they are based on the common denominator of privatization and market reforms. At the same time, they are also “different” because their operation is embedded into dissimilar trajectories of transition. We argue that this calls for more East-East comparison and a clearer focus on the differences in which the transition of property rights, the introduction of new tenure structures and the construction of new markets has been achieved.