Invisible housing: social movement responses to the studentification and displacement of urban manufactured housing communities

This thesis examines the changing spatial contours of gentrification within the context of an American college-town by examining the Garden Springs manufactured housing community that was redeveloped into a luxury student apartment complex in Athens Clarke-County, Georgia in June of 2001, displacing the 500 residents who lived there. The socio-spatial processes that drive this studentification are examined and critically analyzed, and it is suggested that studentification in Athens is fundamentally an example of class conflict. The collective efforts of those residents displaced by studentification are discussed in order to gain a better understanding of the intersections between geography and social movements, and how a grassroots movement is combating the injustice of gentrification in their local community.