ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book recovers that part of the conference dedicated to remembering the work and figure of Neil Smith. It looks at some of the texts that recognise the theoretical contributions of Neil Smith as an intellectual, who was interested in understanding the strategies capitalism employs to ensure its dominion and reproduction in the neoliberal setting both globally and in the urban environment. The book analyses the close relations between gentrification and the rent gap theory, being Neil Smith's most substantial contribution to the field of urban political economy. Neil Smith argued that gentrification relies on the myth of the 'the urban frontier'. As a concept, a frontier marks both a strategy and physical borders. According to Smith, the frontier ideology rationalises displacements and exclusion as something natural and inevitable.
