GENTRIFICATION AND THE POLITICS OF THE NEW MIDDLE-CLASS

Whereas authors have frequently alluded to an adversarial politics amo ng the new middle class of professional and managerial workers, survey s and electoral returns confirm a generally conservative disposition i n this group as a whole. In this paper I seek to specify a social loca tion for left-liberal politics among a distinctive cadre of social and cultural professionals, the cultural new class. This cadre also bears a distinct geographical identity, with an overconcentration in the ce ntral cities of large metropolitan areas, not least in their gentrifyi ng districts. The part played since 1968 by the cultural new class in these gentrifying districts in redefining the urban politics of Toront o, Montreal, and Vancouver is examined. In particular, the role of a g entrifying middle class in challenging a postwar hegemony of growth bo osterism practised by the conservative regimes in all three cities, an d their parallel attempt to sustain an alternative regime of reform po litics, are assessed.