Tourism Gentrification: The Case of New Orleans’ Vieux Carre (French Quarter) Kevin Fox Gotham [Paper first received, May 2004; in final form, September 2004] Summary. This paper examines the process of ‘tourism gentrification’ using a case study of the socio-spatial transformation of New Orleans’ Vieux Carre (French Quarter) over the past half- century. Tourism gentrification refers to the transformation of a middle-class neighbourhood into a relatively affluent and exclusive enclave marked by a proliferation of corporate entertainment and tourism venues. Historically, the Vieux Carre has been the home of diverse groups of people. Over the past two decades, however, median incomes and property values have increased, escalating rents have pushed out lower-income people and African Americans, and tourist attractions and large entertainment clubs now dominate much of the neighbourhood. It is argued that the changing flows of capital into the real estate market combined with the growth of tourism enhance the significance of consumption-oriented activities in residential space and encourage gentrification. The paper contests explanations that view gentrification as an expression of consumer demands, individual preferences or market laws of supply and demand. It examines how the growth of securitisation, changes in consumption and increasing dominance of large entertainment firms manifest through the development of a tourism industry in New Orleans, giving gentrification its own distinct dynamic and local quality. Introduction Recent years have witnessed the growth of a vast and expanding scholarly literature con- cerning the novelty, causal dynamics and socioeconomic impact of gentrification (for an overview, see Atkinson, 2003). Since the early 1990s recession, researchers have noted a ‘third wave’ of gentrification in many cities, including the formation of new alliances between private developers and local government, a ‘reinvention’ of public institutions, and a ‘restructuring’ of the gentri- fication process itself (Wyly and Hammel, 1998, 2004; Wyly, 2002). According to Hackworth (2002), the growth of large corpo- rate developers, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and new networks of mortgage brokers is creating new forms of ‘corporatised gentrification’. For Smith (2002), the impulse behind gentrification is no longer restricted to the US or Europe, but is a global and general- ised process. As a “global urban strategy”, gentrification is now “densely connected into the circuits of global capital and cultural cir- culation” (Smith, 2002, p. 80). Whatever the differences of emphasis and interpretation, common to analyses of gentrification is a focus on new mechanisms of commercial reinvestment, new public subsidies for private investment and a greater interconnec- tedness of local and global forces (for an overview, see Brenner and Theodore, 2002). A key feature of recent research on gentrifica- tion is the attempt to situate gentrification within larger economic and political processes, Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 7, 1099–1121, June 2005 Kevin Fox Gotham is in the Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 220 Newcomb Hall, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA. Fax: (504) 865 5544. E-mail: kgotham@tulane.edu. 0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=05=071099 – 23 # 2005 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080=00420980500120881