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Gentrification Around the World - Ever the divisive debate, gentrification has impacted a growing number of cities across the world, transforming the cultural, racial and socioeconomic makeup of historic communities for better or for worse. Deteriorating neighborhoods blossom into vibrant hubs, while poor residents with generational ties are typically displaced. Keep reading to learn more about gentrification around the world. —Patrice Peck(Photos: Jamel Shabazz/Getty Images; George Rose/Getty Images)

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Cape Town, South Africa - No stranger to gentrification, a number of cities throughout South Africa have undergone or are on the cusp of full-blown gentrification. Longtime established residents continue to face rising municipal taxes directly affected by rising property values and subsequent property re-evaluation. Many families affected by the World Cup development were evicted and moved to the notorious temporary relocation area, Blikkiesdorp.(Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

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Cape Town, South Africa - Cape Town’s Woodstock and Bo-Kaap neighborhoods and Johannesburg’s inner city are a few areas where lower-income groups originally from the region have been displaced by wealthy outsiders looking for cut-rate home and building prices.(Photo: Dennis Cox/WorldViews/Getty Images)

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Brooklyn, New York - Possibly the current poster child for gentrification, Brooklyn has experienced a public face-lift, becoming home to four of the country’s 25 most rapidly gentrifying zip codes, according to a Fordham study. The cost of living in Brooklyn now rivals Manhattan’s, coming second to the historically pricey neighbor but beating out the prosperous San Francisco.(Photo: Jamel Shabazz/Getty Images)

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Brooklyn, New York - Despite — or because of — the borough’s trendy, urban renaissance, Brooklyn houses one of New York state’s poorest populations, with more than one of five residents under the official poverty level, according to Forbes.(Photo: George Rose/Getty Images)

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Vancouver, Canada - Since 2011, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa have experienced rapid gentrification. The term is not associated with a white demographic coming into neighborhoods traditionally populated by people of color. Instead, most of the major jumps in housing prices have been attributed to Asian immigrants and foreigners’ buying downtown housing.(Photo: Don MacKinnon/Getty Images)

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Vancouver, Canada - A volatile site for the gentrification debate, Vancouver has become home to a slew of upscale new businesses and condo projects, despite some neighborhoods still being plagued by poverty, drugs and crime. Local activists condemning the inevitable rise in rent and its impact on poorer residents have held antagonistic protests since February. However, the city also has its fair share of gentrification advocates.(Photo: DAVID HECKER/AFP/Getty Images)

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Paris, France - More and more of France’s mobile elite have become captivated by central Paris, resulting in a homogenized transformation of the once socially diverse area that served as the post-industrial European capital. Deemed “embourgeoisement,” gentrification occurred in this famous city for the same reason it has elsewhere: skyrocketing housing prices.(Photo: Three Lions/Getty Images)

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Paris, France - Subsequently, the urban working classes that originally resided in central Paris were pushed out to suburban “banlieues,” where public transportation is almost non-existent.(Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

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Boston, Massachusetts - The intensity level and speed at which gentrification has occurred throughout the city of Boston earned the process its own specification from sociologist Alan Wolfe: turbo-gentrification.(Photo: Frank O'Brien/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

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Boston, Massachusetts - In several neighborhoods, including the South and North End, Bay Village and West Cambridge, a surge of wealthy residents has moved into previously depreciated housing sites. Their arrival has led to the deterioration of long-standing cultural pockets like the traditional Italian immigration community.(Photo: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

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London, England - Since 2001, a swarm of hipster enclaves have been popping up across central-London neighborhoods, like Dalston and Peckham, drawing in young, urban professionals from the surrounding suburbs.(Photo: PA PHOTOS/LANDOV)

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London, England - As a result, those residents unable to afford increasing rent prices are pushed farther out of desirable areas and into the outer edges of the city, now considered the ghetto by most locals.(Photo: Eleanor Bentall/Bloomberg News/Getty Images)

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Berlin, Germany - After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the historic city attracted an international influx of affluent artists and hipsters. But recently, the longest remaining section of the wall has sparked contention among the blue-collar residents in grim East Berlin and the more affluent professionals and developers looking to transform the district.(vp_33343)

Photo By Photo by Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images

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Berlin, Germany - After a series of aggressive yet unsuccessful protests in 2012 and 2013, the highly debated section of the wall — dubbed the East Side Gallery for its legendary painted murals — was torn down by a police-enforced construction crew to make way for development.(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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Atlanta, Georgia - Occurring since the 1970s when urban flight sparked a decline of formerly upper-class neighborhoods, gentrification has consistently spread to many parts of Atlanta, spiking in the 1990s and 2000s. Affordable housing and residential lofts brought in young professionals, in addition to an eclectic, artsy vibe and fashionable shops and restaurants.(Photo: Douglas Graham/Getty Images)

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Atlanta, Georgia - Many have pointed to the 1996 Summer Olympics that took place in the city as a basis for the area’s recent gentrification. To make room for development and well-off white families, low-income housing projects have been demolished, wiping out historically Black neighborhoods.(Photo: Becky Krystal/The Washington Post/Getty Images)