Around the centres of cities there are often neighbourhoods which have been 'gentrified'.
Houses -sometimes very old and run down - which have been lived in by people without much money, are bought up and done up by people with more money (i.e. 'Gentry') who work in the city centre and find the area convenient. The neighbourhood changes slowly as the people who lived there previously move out - often into Council flats.
North of the City of London lies the Inner London borough of Islington. Parts of Islington were some of the first areas to be gentrified.
Map –OS Copyright
Gentrified houses in Islington.
The type of flats the previous residents may have moved to. When they lived in the houses they were very run down and they may have been pleased to move to modern flats.
Possibly, these changes in Islington provided fewer opportunities for other incoming 'migrant' groups to develop the neighbourhoods for their own and actually a lower proportion of Islington's population comes from ethnic minorities than other nearby boroughs.
This process - Gentrification - now happens in many cities.
This shows part of an inner city area in Ghent in Belgium. The house behind the statue has already been gentrified while the one across the road is waiting to be done up.
Beyond this gate of the old city are the flats where the previous inhabitants of the older areas may have been moved to.