The Five Senses of Gentrification

Social media, mainstream news, and an explosion of Substack newsletters often painted pictures of cities quelled and hibernating, in some ways diminished, and of urbanites either turned inward toward self-betterment, or outward, toward their local communities or country homes.

There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of unset... See more