By Igor Vojnovic and Minting Ye

Gentrification is reshaping urban areas all around the world, displacing large segments of the population and making cities increasingly unaffordable.

In San Francisco, only 12% of households can afford a median priced home, which is over US$1.5 million. In Hong Kong, the worlds most unaffordable city alongside Singapore and Paris, there are currently some 90,000 families living in inadequate housing conditions.

We study urban development and its social, physical and environmental impacts. We recently examined two decades of cultural transitions in Hong Kong with a focus on how the changing status of women and attitudes toward marriage have altered the real estate market.

What we found is that single women in Hong Kong have played a surprising and little-studied role in gentrification.