An urban area that holds a large number of single professionals, married couples
without children, and other groups who make up much of the average gentrifying
community is likely to have several gentrified neighborhoods, if the first two criteria
have been met.
Many social geographers have pointed out that gentrification, in addition to the
economic benefits it brings, also has negative effects. One of the most obvious neg-
ative influences of gentrification is that the rise in property values that gentrification
invariably generates often results in theoriginal, lower-income residents of the
neighborhood moving to another location, as they cannot afford higher rents and/
or taxes. The displacement of residents, who in the United States are often African
Americans or other ethnic minorities, carries racial overtones, and sometimes
results in tension between the gentrifying residents and those who lived in the area
prior to gentrification. Poorer residents, who are more likely to be renters than prop-
erty owners, often find that their rents are steadily increasing as a result of gentrifi-
cation in the local community. Moreover, local businesses may be driven out as
well, as the new consumer base does not patronize stores that do not offer either
the type or range of products they wish to buy. New businesses may locate to the
gentrified area to take advantage of the business opportunities offered by the “gen-
try” now living there, and “Mom and Pop” style stores, small neighborhood restau-
rants, and other establishments may be forced out of business. Surrounding
neighborhoods, even those lying outside the immediate zone of gentrification,
may be adversely affected, as their property values, and therefore property taxes,
may increase simply by being located adjacent to gentrified housing. In areas where
many of the gentrifying groups are gay, conflict over social values with the local
community may erupt, leading to friction. In spite of the drawbacks to gentrifica-
tion, it appears highly likely that the trend will continue well into the future.
Geographic Information Systems
Cartography, the science of makingmaps, has long been the province of the
geographer. Modern cartography has largely transitioned to the use of the com-
puter. In the 1960s, computer mapping required mainframe computers to produce
simple and poor-quality maps. Today, the advent of computing thousands of times
faster with high-quality output available at the desktop allows manipulation and
modeling of geographically referenced data into output maps that would be diffi-
cult if not impossible to achieve with manual cartography. This type of environ-
ment is known as geographic information systems (GIS), and its academic
pursuit is sometimes called geographic information science. The power behind
Geographic Information Systems 141