Briefly Noted: “Cape Fever,” “A Very Cold Winter,” “Strangers,” and “The Death and Life of Gentrification.”

This wide-ranging study explores how the term “gentrification” has slipped the bonds of its original, “brick-and-mortar” usage, becoming a way to signal loss while addressing “structural inequalities and concomitant social changes.” As a metaphor, its meaning has become fluid; it is now commonplace to read of the “gentrification” of subjects as varied as music, the internet, sandwiches, and queer culture. Brown-Saracino also zeroes in on a crucial aspect of the term’s appeal: in an era of ideological land mines, “gentrification,” she writes, “is politically charged without evoking a specific, narrow political stance.”

How renters and landlords on the Providence City Council are grappling with the rent control plan

The two are among 15 city councilors who will have to decide whether to implement rent stabilization in Providence this year. An ordinance introduced last month would cap rent increases at 4 percent a year across the city, with many exceptions, including for newly constructed homes. More than half of the council’s members are either renters or landlords in the city. And their own experiences, and those of their neighbors, have helped shape their opinions.

How I Let Go of Gentrification

Today, talk of gentrification abounds and that talk is increasingly heterogeneous. On a field trip with my students, a tour guide used the term not to describe class turnover in post-industrial neighborhoods, but to gesture to a much longer history of population replacement. For him, gentrification conveyed a century of racialized displacement: from the replacement of Black populations by changing industrial uses, to urban renewal, and, finally, to present-day real-estate speculation. Used in this manner, gentrification encompasses the displacement of marginalized populations, regardless of form, decade, or origin. This example is just the tip of the iceberg. All kinds of people rely on gentrification to talk about transformations, many of them unrelated to cities. For instance, reporters refer to the gentrification of the churro and the gentrification of Burning Man. Here, gentrification denotes the upscaling of entities that aren’t neighborhoods; the churro has become more expensive and Burning Man has transmogrified into a festival-destination for the wealthy and celebrities.

You Can Gentrify Anything Today. What Does that Say About Society?

Boston University ethnographer Japonica Brown-Saracino says gentrification means more than a fresh coat of paint and rising real estate prices in old neighborhoods. It’s about how the market can turn anything into a hot commodity—and take it out of the hands of the people who nurtured it.

Finally, a media breakthrough of the pro-Yimby narrative that has dominated press and politics

The Yimby movement was born in 2014, when Sonja Trauss founded SFBARF, the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Foundation. Twelve years later, Yimbyism, rebranded as Abundance, has bipartisan support in Congress. “Pro-housing” legislation has passed in dozens of states. It’s the law of the land in California. Its advocates call the shots in reputedly progressive cities such as San Francisco and Berkeley. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has surrounded himself with Yimby advisors.

Are YIMBYs winning the housing wars? Not so fast, these people say

From city council hearings to the halls of academia, the debate raged for years. Then came 2020, and Americans raced to buy homes during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Prices shot up, pushing the U.S. median to $410,800, a 30 percent increase in five years, Federal Reserve data shows. Median prices go significantly higher in the West ($531,100) and Northeast ($796,700). Now even starter homes are increasingly out of reach.

Trump is taking on high housing costs. Will his ideas help?

The Trump administration has floated a flurry of new housing policies — from longer mortgage terms to cracking down on corporate buyers of single-family homes — that officials hope will ease the housing cost burden on everyday Americans. But will they? And can the federal government really tackle a problem largely determined by local and state governments?

Families are leaving Boston. What is Boston’s millennial mom mayor doing about that?

Despite a series of pro-family policies from City Hall, the number of children in Boston continues to decline.

Mayor Michelle Wu has long worn her motherhood on her sleeve.

From nursing her infant sons at City Council meetings, to commuting with them as toddlers on the Orange Line, to carrying her newborn, Mira, on the campaign trail, Wu has put her status as a parent front and center, and says the heart of her mayoral agenda is to make Boston the “most family-friendly city in America.”

That is not by accident.