the primary drivers of the rent gap are shifts in urban policy and market demand. Urban planners—increasingly concerned with growth, and so beholden to the priorities of developers and investors—play a critical role not only in creating rent gaps where none previously existed but in helping landlords and property owners exploit them. In this way, gentrification becomes a political process as much as a social and economic one: an outcome of zoning changes and tax abatements, infrastructure upgrades and public-private partnerships.
