The Gentrification Discussion Arrives in Tucson

Brenna Bailey examines the gentrification occurring in Tucson, Arizona, presenting the dynamics as more complex than the most common narratives about displacement and urban revitalization. Notably absent is the typically heated and contentious rhetoric of gentrification conversations in other cities.

Bailey calls on Kelly Smith, a housing affordability analyst at the University of Arizona’s Drachman Institute, to make the point of gentrification isn't as common or as broad as some might assume. Moreover, according to case made by multiple sources in the article, Tucson is probably not going to experience the same kind of negative outcomes from gentrification as one might find in Austin, Brooklyn, or San Francisco.

Yet people in Tucson are still concerned about affordability in neighborhoods like Menlo Park and Dunbar/Spring.