Peter Nelson (Geography) and a colleague at Point Park University have received a three year grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled International Rural Gentrification; research teams from the United Kingdom and France are also funded via their own respective national funding agencies.  The entire project is part of the Open Research Area funding scheme for international social science research  that now involves agencies in four European countries as well as the NSF. The objective of this multi-national collaborative project is to undertake the first in-depth cross-national integrated comparative study of the theory, forms and dynamics of rural gentrification encompassing France, UK and USA.      The US team will compile a comprehensive database of rural gentrification indicators for each of the three countries, and then identify a set of communities in the US in which to carry out in depth case study analysis focusing on the different forms of rural gentrification and the various actors involved in the process. Scholars from the UK and France will do similar case study analyses in their respective countries. In addition to funding all the costs of the research in the US, the grant will also fund trips to Europe to meet with the entire research team; this research will be the focus of Pete’s academic leave in 2015-16.   Three undergraduate students will be involved in this research.

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