An island of civilization in a sea of delay? Indifference and fragmentation along the rugged shorelines of Kiev’s newbuild archipelago

Abstract

Some of the literature on newbuild gentrification (NBG) suggests that residents of neighborhoods exposed to NBG gradually become alienated from their surroundings because it erodes the sense of place, producing, as one influential scholar noted, “colonized and unfamiliar” environments. The degree to which such feelings prevail relates to the extent and nature of the social contacts and connections between newbuild gentrifiers and “locals,” yet the current state of the art is inconclusive and, above all, geographically skewed toward the experience of a few Western cities. This article addresses both problems. Thus, based on a case study conducted in Kiev, the least studied of Europe’s great cities, this article explores how the social environment evolves in areas that experience NBG. In-depth interviews with newbuild gentrifiers and locals and the analysis of contributions to relevant web-based fora are used to investigate how and to what extent the “newcomers” interact with their “indigenous” neighbors, the two groups’ mutual perceptions of one another, and the locals’ assessment of the impact of the newbuilds on the living conditions in the neighborhood.