Beyond Rotterdam’s Gentrifying Neighbourhoods: Who Moves Where and Why It Matters

Who Moves Where and Why It Matters

Abstract

This dissertation examines how state-led gentrification reshapes residential mobility patterns and socio-spatial inequality in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. While gentrification research has traditionally focused on neighbourhood change, less attention has been paid to the residential trajectories of movers and the ways these trajectories connect local transformations to broader regional housing dynamics. Addressing this gap, the thesis investigates who moves to and from gentrifying neighbourhoods, where they come from and go, and how they interpret these moves within the context of gentrification. Using a mixed-methods research design, the study combines a systematic literature review, longitudinal Dutch register data from Statistics Netherlands, and semi-structured interviews with inter-urban movers. The findings demonstrate that Rotterdam’s gentrification is not solely a neighbourhood-level process but is embedded within wider regional housing markets. Rising housing costs in highly gentrified cities generate inter-urban mobility flows that contribute to the restructuring of Rotterdam’s neighbourhoods, a process described as second-hand gentrification. The analysis further shows that gentrification is reinforced through internal upgrading, as middle-class residents increasingly remain within and move between gentrifying areas, gradually reducing housing opportunities for lower-income households. At the same time, housing affordability pressures increasingly affect middle-class households, positioning them simultaneously as subjects and agents of displacement. By linking residential mobility patterns across regional, local, and individual scales to processes of urban change, this dissertation shows that mobility both shapes and is shaped by gentrification. It argues for a spatial-demographic perspective that recognises gentrification as a relational process through which housing inequalities are reproduced across interconnected urban regions.