Book Discussion: ”The Commodification Gap- Gentrification and Public Policy in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg”
On Thursday, May 4, political scientist and sociologist Dr Matthias Bernt is visiting IUR and the Housing and Welfare Research Network to discuss his new book published with Wiley.
Matthias Bernt works as a research group leader at Leibniz-Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) in Erkner, Germany and as an adjunct lecturer at the Institute for Social Sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research focuses on the interrelation of urban governance, social change and urban development.
The Commodification Gap provides an insightful institutionalist perspective on the field of gentrification studies. The book explores the relationship between the operation of gentrification and the institutions underpinning – but also influencing and restricting – it in three neighborhoods in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg. Matthias Bernt demonstrates how different institutional arrangements have resulted in the facilitation, deceleration or alteration of gentrification across time and place. The book is based on empirical studies conducted in Great Britain, Germany and Russia and contains one of the first-ever English language discussions of gentrification in Germany and Russia. It begins with an examination of the limits of the widely established “rent-gap” theory and proposes the novel concept of the “commodification gap.” It then moves on to explore how different institutional contexts in the UK, Germany and Russia have framed the conditions for these gaps to enable gentrification. The Commodification Gap is an indispensable resource for researchers and academics studying human geography, housing studies, urban sociology and spatial planning.
The joint seminar will be hybrid.
Time: 10.15-11.45
Place: NICO929 and Zoom.
