ABSTRACT
As suburbanization expanded, the inner city came to be seen by the white middle class as an urban wilderness which only began to be tamed as urban pioneers, the new folk heroes of the urban frontier, engaged in processes of gentrification and urban renewal. In the language of gentrification, the appeal to frontier imagery is exact: urban pioneers, urban homesteaders and urban cowboys are the new folk heroes of the urban frontier. In the public media, gentrification has been presented as the pre-eminent symbol of the larger urban redevelopment that is taking place. The outward movement of capital to develop suburban, industrial, residential, commercial, and recreational activity results in a reciprocal change in suburban and inner-city ground-rent levels. The maturation of the baby-boom generation, the increased number of women taking on careers, the proliferation of one- and two-person households and the popularity of the “urban singles” life-style are commonly invoked as the real factors behind gentrification.
