Una propuesta metodológica para identificar gentrificación a partir de los censos de población

Current research on gentrification in Latin America shows a predominance of case studies, most of which focuses on specific areas using qualitative approaches. In this context, one of the main challenges is to develop methodologies to produce replicable and comparable information, enabling larger scales’ analysis. The international literature recognizes the potential of census statistics for meeting this goal, highlighting the need to combine both variables of social status and housing conditions. It also points out the importance of addressing the process as a local/neighbourhood change that needs to be analyzed in a whole-city scale and with a broad temporality. Based on these ideas, this work explores the population and housing censuses for Buenos Aires autonomous city and proposes a specific methodology to detect potential gentrifying areas, as well as correlated variables that come out to explain what may make these areas more “gentrificable”. The text concludes by evaluating the potentiality of this methodology, as well as warning about the heterogeneities and limitations of each national census when making comparisons between different countries.