Differential gentrification: country of birth, profession and apartment ownership in Dudelange (1969-2018)

This paper investigates the links between gentrification, country of birth, and property wealth in Dudelange, a post-industrial city in Luxembourg. It draws on detailed demographic and socio-economic information on the individuals involved in the sale and purchase of the totality of the city’s apartments between 1969 and 2018. This land registry data makes it possible to chart the evolution of the population of owners in this housing submarket in the context of the decline of the industrial sector and of the rise of financial services. Dudelange’s apartment sector bears witness to the city’s transition from relative economic self-reliance to a dependence on the capital city (and the country’s financial centre). While this shift manifested in a broader set of buyers (by country of birth and profession), we trace a process of differential gentrification. By introducing the term ‘differential gentrification’ we look beyond the conventional census-based data and highlight the ways in which social upscaling pressures could be differentiated by family property wealth and its links to country of birth. Indeed, in a context of sustained price growth since the 1990s, we find a more significant process of social upscaling among migrant apartment owners than among those born in Luxembourg, which might point to the shielding effect of family property wealth in the face of exclusionary displacement pressures.