Culture,capital and the big screen: tracing the changing dynamics of gentrification in the films of Woody Allen

This paper undertakes an analysis of the shifting dynamics of gentrification through the lens of the films of Woody Allen. With his focus upon the spaces of residence and high-end consumption for the upper and middle classes, the paper argues that Allen’s films can be used as a lens to examine the changing dynamics of gentrification in contemporary (Western) cities from something deemed almost novel in the 1970s, to a dominant approach to urban transformation in the early twenty-first century. In so doing, the paper demonstrates the constant tension between the desire to carve out a particular urban idyll and that of a sense of loss perceived by gentrifiers themselves of the rate of change taking place in the contemporary city.