A less-than-traditional book like this does not come to fruition without the encouragement of key people at key moments. Peter Marcuse, Sharon Zukin, Philip Kasinitz, and Roger Keil encouraged this auto-ethnographic line of inquiry dating back to John and Jason’s original article in IJURR, as did Douglas Hildebrand of UTP, who pitched the book-length treatment. Mary Pattillo and Marisa Novara’s insights were so sustained, engaged, and profound that John could not help but make them characters in our story. Marc’s conversations with John Jackson and R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy on race and gentrification helped to challenge and shape his perspective during this project. We also benefited from Marc’s public conversations with John and Spike Lee on the topic of gentrification; we are grateful to Mr. Lee for pushing the conversation. John is grateful to Rev. Michael Louis Pfleger, whose imprint and influence is almost certainly upon the genesis of the ideas herein. Amie Sell and Noreen Cornfield read and commented on the manuscript and John’s gentrification seminar students provoked and sharpened many ideas in the book. We are grateful to DePaul editor Jen Finstrom for her selfless investment in dozens of iterations of this manuscript – all while asking for more to do – and to Tamara Nopper, who pushed us once we had a draft. Most important, though, Jason and John acknowledge that this book would not have happened without the support, input, and patience of Monique Bobb Schlichtman and Mariani Lefas-Tetenes.