Introduction
Gentrification is one of the strongest accounts of the 21st urbanisation process, and the concept of Gentrification has informed the development of new urbanism. Gentrification is the process whereby the working classes in London have been displaced by the upper and lower middle class. In most part of London, the cottages, such as two rooms or Shabby have been taken over by elegant expensive residential buildings. (Burtler, Slater). Thus, in the inner city of London, Gentrification has led to the physical transformation of housing tenures that has led to displacement of working class by the middle class. (Hamnett).
The objective of this proposal is to provide the extent of gentrification’s evident in London.
The research questions are essential to provide motivation for conducting research.
Research questions
The dissertation develops the following research questions in order to enhance greater understanding on the extent of Gentrification in London.
- To what extent is the evident of Gentrification in London?
- What are the major impacts of gentrification on Brixton working class in London?
- To what extent is the future of gentrification in London?
To examine the extent of gentrification in London, the proposal develops the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis
- H1. Middle class people displace Brixton working class in London.
- H2. Gentrification is beneficial due to its renovation effects on the city of London.
- H3. Gentrification increases in London due to the increase in the numbers of professionals, and managerial middle class.
Outline of previous works (literature review)
The review of literatures is essential in the dissertation to enhance greater understanding of previous works of other scholars.
Scholars have contributed to the greater understanding of gentrification. Butler and Lees argued that gentrification in London is as result of the action of wealthy individuals slowly imposing standard houses different from traditional urban upper class. However, Koko described contributing factors that led to the gentrification. The authors believed that the increase in income level of some residents of London was a positive reason that led to the increase of rehabilitation of housing stocks. These redevelopments of housing have led to the displacement of working class for the benefits of middle class. Moreover, Hamnett revealed the extent of gentrification from his study titled “Gentrification and the Middle-class Remaking of Inner London, 1961–2001”. According to Hamnett,
“the gentrification of parts of inner London which began as early as the 1960s are
now taking on an increasingly diverse pattern as different areas develop an
identity of their own and expand the choice for the middle classes”. (26).
All the literatures reviewed believed that gentrification occurs because of the sophisticated improvement of residential building that led to the displacement of working class from their residential building for the benefits of middle class. However, the dissertation will examine the validity of this argument from the verification of data collected through questionnaires, and interviews.
Information on study site
The proposal will explore the city of London to examine the extent of gentrification on Brixton.
The methods of data collection are essential to test the hypotheses and answer research questions. Next chapter discusses methods of data collection.
Method
This section discusses method of data collection for the proposal. The section will also carry out data analysis
Data collection
The study will collect data through primary and secondary sources. The data collected through primary sources will involve questionnaires, and interviews. The proposal will provide structured questionnaires where the respondents will be allowed to choose questions from the list of answers supplied by the interviewers. For example, the structure of the question will be as follows:
Q: Gentrification leads to the displacement of larger number of working class Brixton from their homes.
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- somewhat agree
- Not Agree
- Strongly not agree.
To ensure that large number of respondents receive the questionnaires, the researcher will use internet to distribute all the questionnaires, and email will be used to distribute the questionnaires in order to reach the target population at minimum costs. Thus, to ensure that the specified number of target population are achieved, the researcher will distribute 1000 questionnaires to reach 100 target population since it is presumed that some respondents will not returned their questionnaires. In addition, it is presumed that some respondents will not fill their questionnaires correctly, and there may be bounced emails. Thus, the researcher will be able to meet the number of target population with the remaining number of returned questionnaires.
In addition, the proposed research will employ interview technique to obtain data for the dissertation. The proposal will employ semi-structured interview technique to obtain opinion of people for the dissertation. The semi-structured interview technique will allow the interviewees to provide their opinion on the questions posed by the researcher. A sample of interview question will be as follows:
Q: Do you agree that gentrification affect the Brixton working class?
This type of question will be employed for data collection in order to ensure that the respondents offer their opinion on gentrification with specific focus on Brixton. The time taking to offer interview will be approximately 20 minutes for each interviewee, and the proposal will interview approximately 10 people to sample their opinion on the extent of gentrification in London.
The proposal will also collect data through secondary sources. The researcher will search articles on gentrification with special focus on Brixton from several academic journals. These journals will be searched from academic database such as Sage journal online, Wile Inter science, EBSCOHOST, and ELSEVIER. The proposal will also explore the database of Communities and Local government to explore the gentrification in London.
Apart from searching the database of electronic journals, some research articles will be handpicked in order to add to the unique quality of the dissertation. Some articles written by experts on gentrification will be handpicked for the study. For example, the article written by Hamnett titled “Gentrification and the Middle-class Remaking of Inner London, 1961–2001” will be handpicked for the dissertation. In addition, article written by Butler and Lees titled “Super-gentrification in Barnsbury, London: globalisation and gentrifying global elites at the neighbourhood level” will also be handpicked for the study.
An article written by Hamnett, titled, “The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification”, and a book written by Smith, and titled “The new urban frontier: gentrification and the revanchist city” will also be handpicked for the dissertation. (Phillips).
Observation method
The proposal will also employed observation method to collect data The observation method involves mechanical observation on the extent of gentrification on Brixton, and its effects over the years in London. The research will develop observation tool to process what to find during the observation process. The researcher intends to employ observation method in order to observe the record events because data collected by interviews may not be accurate enough. From observation, there has been large displacement of working class by the middle class through the increase in the number of modern skyscrapers in the London city. (Burtler).
Sample population
The sample population for the questionnaires will be academic scholars, the housing developers, government workers, staff of Housing Corporation, managers of housing business organisations, and other participants that have knowledge on the gentrification in London. The sample population for interview will be developers, staff of Housing Corporation, and managers of housing business organisations.
Thus, to provide validity for the proposal, it is essential to provide data analysis.
Data analysis
To ensure that data collected are credible, and validate the results, the proposal will use data analysis for data verification, and data credibility. Thus, the following process will be used for data analysis.
First, the study will employ qualitative and quantitative methods for data analysis.
The process of data analysis through qualitative methods will involve several stages.
To ensure reliability of data collected, the data will be checked for accuracy to conform to research objectives. To check data accuracy, all the data collected will be checked for spelling errors. Part of data analysis is to ensure that the respondents answer the questions without bias, and the technique used to ensure that the answers conform to questions asked is that the researcher will ask some questions twice, and framed them in different methods. From the answers provided by the respondents, the researcher will be able assert whether the respondents answer the questions without bias.
The answers from the interviews will also be checked for accuracy, all the answers will be checked for suspected bias, and the suspected bias will be removed to ensure reliability of data collected.
By using quantitative methods for data analysis, the proposal will employ statistical method, and the report of data collected will be through graphs, charts, maps and tables. Thus, the overall data analysis is to ensure that the dissertation is able to establish reliability, validity, and credibility.
Findings
The findings provide the results of data collected for the proposal. The findings will report the extent of gentrification in London, and results will reveal whether the proposal achieves research objectives, and answer the research questions. In addition, the findings will draw conclusion whether the hypothesis are testable. Thus, all the results for the proposal will be provided in form of graphs, charts, tables, diagrams, maps, and photos. In addition, the findings will also be provided in form of reports, and explain the significant of the tables, graphs, maps, and photos to enhance understanding of the findings.
Despite the results of the proposal, it is natural that the researcher might encounter some setbacks while conducting research. The proposal discusses some of the problems that might be encountered in dissertation process.
Research limitations
The limitation of the proposal involves some of the problems that researcher might encounter during the research process. Some of the problems that can be encountered are data collection procedure. For example, there can be problems to secure the appropriate number of respondents for the questionnaires. Moreover, the research can meet setback in securing appointments for the appropriate number of people for the interviews. Finally, there can be some problems in finding appropriate required number of literatures for the proposal, since only few scholars have conducted research on the extent of gentrification in London.
How to overcome the setbacks
The researcher intends to overcome these setbacks by sending large number of questionnaires in order to secure appropriate number of respondents. For example, the researcher will send 1000 questionnaires to secure 100 accurate filled questionnaires from respondents. The same process will be used for interview process in order to secure appropriate number of people for the interview process. To overcome the problems of scanty literatures for the secondary research, the proposal will explore database of Housing corporation in the UK to supplement the literatures on gentrification.
References
The proposal will use MLA style for all the citation in the dissertation.
Appendices
All the tables, charts, graph, maps and, photos will be provided in appendices. In addition, the appendix will also consist of a copy of questionnaire, and interview schedule. A full transcript of a semi-structured interview or focus group will also be included in the appendix. The appendix will also consist of full set of secondary data undertaken.
Conclusion
The proposal provides the extent of gentrification in London, and it provides the research objectives, and the research questions. In addition, the hypotheses are developed in the proposal. Literatures are reviewed to examine the previous studies on the extent of gentrification in London. The research methods provide data collection procedure. The paper points out that the primary, secondary sources will be used for data collection, and the paper presents data analysis for the proposal.
The overall findings for the proposal will be in form of graphs, tables, photos, maps, charts, and reports. The proposal presents some of the setbacks the research might encounter during research and methods to overcome the setbacks. The overall findings will enhance greater understanding of academic communities, governments, individuals, and private organisations on the extent of gentrification in London.
Work Cited
Butler, Tom and Lees Loretta. “Super-gentrification in Barnsbury, London: globalization and gentrifying global elites at the neighbourhood level”, Royal Geographical Society, 2006:457-487.
Butler, Tim. “Re-urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, Suburbanization or New Urbanism?” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, (2007): 759–781.
Burtler, Tim. “Social Capital, Gentrification and Neighbourhood Change in London: A Comparison of Three South London Neighbourhoods”, Urban Studies, 38.12, (2001): 2145-2162.
Hamnett, Chris. “Gentrification and the Middle-class Remaking of Inner London, 1961–2001”, Urban Studies, 40.12, (2003): 2401–2426.
Hamnett, Chris, “The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gentrification” Trans Inst, 16, (1991): 173-189.
Kolko, Jed. The Determinants of Gentrification, UK, Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc, 2007.
Phillips, Martins. “Other geographies of gentrification”, Progress in Human Geography, 28.1. (2004): 5-30.
Slater, Tom, Either disinvestment and decay or gentrification and displacement is a false choice for low-income communities, UK, Lycos.
Smith Neil, The new urban frontier: gentrification and the revanchist city, USA, Routledge, 1996.