Moving from “superstar” cities to “ordinary” cities to reclaim middle-class status: gentrification-induced inter-metropolitan migration

A national reshuffling of the United States population is in progress, as ever more people adjust to the reality of excessively expensive urban housing markets. We unpack the out-migration of middle-class people from large, high-growth cities propelled by gentrification pressures, into one lower-cost metropolitan area in North Carolina: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (“the Triangle”), considering the multiple impacts of migrants on the region. We refine concepts that are central to the gentrification scholarship, namely who is displaced and the geographic range of displacement. We find that migrants experience many benefits in their new location but have fears about the future of their new city. As the Triangle is growing, it is reproducing the high prices, environmental harm, and loss of a sense of place migrants experienced in their city of origin. This suggests that newly growing cities such as the Triangle are at risk of replicating the inequalities that plague superstar cities. Theoretically, we reflect on how a case study of an “ordinary” city (Robinson [2002]. Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3), 531–554.; Robinson [2006]. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and development. Psychology Press.) in the United States South, an underrepresented region in urban studies, can shed new light on urbanization in the United States.