Condominium development and gentrification in Bangkok, Thailand: a study of housing pathways

This thesis explores the use of a housing pathways framework to understand how households impacted by mass transit-induced gentrification and displacement in a neighbourhood in Bangkok navigate the field of housing and experience neighbourhood change. It focuses on the experiences of both gentrifiers and long-term residents of a neighbourhood, including those displaced. The housing pathways approach is framed around a combination of the theory of the habitus as interpreted by Bourdieu and phenomenological philosophy. Findings are based on a case study area of neighbourhoods close to a recent mass transit line extension, where two new stations were built. The study consisted of in-depth interviews with households living in the condominiums, in the neighbourhood, and in cases outside of the neighbourhood if they had been displaced from the area. There were also in-depth interviews with individuals from estate agencies, development companies, the Bangkok planning department, and the national low-cost housing provider. The research contributes to knowledge by adding to the literature on housing pathways. This is achieved through employing the concepts of the structural and biographical habitus and using vignettes to bridge these two approaches. It also contributes to knowledge by adding to the literature on gentrification, finding that although contextual factors must be considered, the theories developed in the West can provide significant insights when applied to neighbourhood change in Bangkok. The first key finding is that housing pathways have been shown to be complex in nature, influenced by traditional values but intertwined with emerging cultural shifts within contemporary Thai society. Another key finding of this study is that gentrification is intrinsically linked to aspects of mobility and proximity, similar in nature to the gentrification in the West seen by those as driven by practical considerations. Like in the West, it has also been found that social mixing between the new and old populations is limited and that displaced households and those in insecure tenurial positions suffered significantly in dealing with gentrification and attempting to resettle if they had been forced to move.