gentrification

Meaning: Gentrification is a process in which higher-income residents, investors and businesses move into a lower-income, often disinvested urban neighborhood. Demand for housing rises, so rents, property values and property taxes climb, and shops shift to serve the newcomers. Many longtime lower-income residents are priced out and displaced, though some remain. The neighborhood's class makeup and culture change, and often its racial composition too.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a neighborhood where rents rise, new cafés open and original residents leave, and the question asks you to name the process or predict the trend: median income and housing costs go up, while the share of long-term low-income renters goes down. It serves as an example of social stratification, spatial inequality and residential segregation. A conflict-theory reading stresses unequal power and competition for housing; a functionalist reading may stress revitalization, a larger tax base and fewer vacant buildings.

Common confusion: Students mix it up with white flight or suburbanization, which is the earlier movement of wealthier residents out of the city center. Gentrification is the movement of wealthier residents into poorer areas. It is also not just any neighborhood improvement; the sociological meaning centers on a change in class composition and displacement.