Voices of Cully: Experiencing the home amid gentrification

The Cully neighborhood is situated in the northeast quadrant of Portland, Oregon. It is a 2.75-square-mile plot of land and home to roughly 13,000 people. In addition to being one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Portland, it is the most densely populated, with the smallest amount of parkland per capita. Over the past two decades, home value has increased 203 percent in Cully, compared to a 90 percent citywide increase. We interviewed residents of the Cully neighborhood to explore their relationship to home amidst conditions of gentrification. Gentrification literature and mainstream media coverage most often focus on neighborhood-scale socioeconomic processes of gentrification, ignoring the home as the space where gentrification is experienced first and most intimately. This article takes steps toward analyzing the scalar impacts of gentrification, moving beyond and below a neighborhood-scale analysis to consider the ways in which gentrification impacts residents inside their homes -- homes which, we argue, can take on both sanctuary and imprisoning qualities. Just as gentrification will look different depending on researchers' and/or policymakers' conceptualizations, so too will anti-gentrification interventions. Developing place-specific anti-gentrification solutions entails listening to the voices of experience, the voices of residents.