A gentrification stage‐model for London? Through the ‘looking Glass’ of Kensington

Despite the term ‘gentrification’ being coined in London by the British sociologist Ruth Glass, there has not been an attempt to develop a stage model of gentrification for London, nor any up‐to‐date discussion of the different waves of gentrification there in one academic paper or book. Research on urban gentrification tends to see gentrification as an evolving wave, or set of waves, that change in relation to context and the dynamics of urban change. In this paper we look at the different stages of gentrification that have affected London over time, we do so by looking through the lens of a long gentrified part of inner London—Kensington, part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. After establishing a stage model of gentrification in Kensington, we argue that stage models, like ours, have value in, for example, rethinking past trajectories of gentrification, but that we should be more critical of stage models going forwards.