Gentrification everywhere? Delinking gentrification and culture-led regeneration

This paper challenges the trend of using "gentrification" (in Chinese: shishen hua 士紳化/仕紳化 or jinshen hua 縉紳化) as a shorthand criticism of culture-led regeneration and neighborhood transformations, including rent increases and changes in aesthetic and tastes, in Sinophone Asia and beyond. To maintain the critical dimension of gentrification, defined by the displacement of existing poorer people by late-coming wealthier people, this paper argues for a delinking between gentrification and culture-led regeneration by presenting two case studies from Taiwan. These cases demonstrate that new aesthetic-oriented, culture and creativity-related businesses, rather than local residents and existing traditional businesses, are often less resilient toward rent increases. Rather than "gentrification," rent increases affects the future of heritage remaking and community building. This paper also examines the influx of unregulated street vendors and arcade merchandisers to illustrate how gentrification fails to address the problems regenerated neighborhoods face.