Climate Gentrification: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence in the City of Gold Coast, Australia

The rising sea level induced by global climate change has increasingly threatened coastal cities. Human relocation and resettlement in the wake of sea level rise are subject to elevation, proximity to coasts, and the resilience of communities, possibly leading to the change of socioeconomic profiles of neighbourhoods and the emergence of a new urban phenomenon termed climate gentrification. This study aims to propose a tri-disciplinary conceptual framework integrating social, environmental, and urban sciences to explore the potential existence of climate gentrification. Through an empirical study in a coastal city of Gold Coast, Australia, we first identify suburbs that are undergoing gentrification based on demographic and socioeconomic indicators. We then statistically test whether the level of gentrification is associated with the built environment and natural environment factors, in particular, the level of risk to sea level rise. The empirical findings show that the multi-dimensional determinants of social, built and natural environment features collectively affect the potential formation and spatial evolution of climate gentrification in this rapidly evolving coastal city through its push and pull effects. Our study contributes to ongoing literature by conceptualising as well as operationalising a multi-dimensional framework to study the emerging climate gentrification phenomenon.