Gentrifiers, distinction, and social preservation: A case study in consumption on Mount Pleasant Street in Washington, DC/ Andrew Riely

Mount Pleasant, a neighbourhood of Washington, DC that has experienced several decades of residential gentrification (Gale, 1980; Modan, 2007; Williams, 1988), nonetheless possesses a commercial corridor where local stores far outnumber boutique retail and corporate chain outlets. Its situation challenges a critical strain within the commercial gentrification literature that emphasises the likelihood of retail displacement during the gentrification process and characterises gentrifier consumers as primarily interested in retail outlets that are familiar or carefully designed to suit their taste. This study investigates gentrifiers’ consumption practices in Mount Pleasant to ascertain how they differ from those of peers in neighbourhoods where gentrification has followed a more typical trajectory. Using theories of distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) and social preservation (Brown-Saracino, 2009), I argue that many local gentrifiers, contradictorily, seek to accrue cultural capital by consuming ‘authentic’ local culture and products while paying attention to the costs of turnover and displacement.