Daily Life in Great American Cities: urban experiences of segregation and gentrification
Many scholars have documented the dramatic impact of segregation and gentrification on large U.S. cities in the past decades. However, while numerous and thorough, these studies have tended to develop into separate bodies of research and have rarely addressed the links relating these two processes. This thesis intends to bridge this gap: it brings segregation and gentrification together by analyzing the ways that they are reflected, lived, produced and reworked by the residents in their neighborhoods. I begin by reflecting on the seminal role of my first stay in the Bay Area in the construction of my research questions. I then turn to the ways segregation and gentrification have impacted large U.S. city neighborhoods and their residents: after presenting the main theories developed by the social sciences to explain these urban processes, I examine the everyday experiences of the residents of various segregated or gentrified San Francisco neighborhoods. The goal is to understand the importance of geography in the construction of the residents' urban experience, and conversely, to reveal the role of the residents in the making of contrasting neighborhoods. Finally, I analyze children's place and role in segregation and gentrification; I show that it is important to turn to this underestimated group of residents not only because they carry the strategies and ways of living of their parents but also because they are legitimate urbanites per se. Ultimately I reveal the great complexity of these urban processes, of the territories that they produce, and of the urban experiences of neighborhood residents.