2 reinforce the social exclusion of older people. However, it is also important to uncover possible dynamics of social exclusion of older people who ﬁnd themselves living amidst growing aﬄuence where they experience forms of place reshaping largely beyond their control, as in the case of neighbourhoods undergoing gentriﬁcation [16]. Gentriﬁcation is simultaneously a physical, economic, social, and cultural phenomenon classically deﬁned in the literature as involving the “invasion” of previously working- class neighbourhoods by middle or upper-income groups and the subsequent displacement of many of the original residents [17]. (The use of the term “invasion” intentionally evokes the notion of invasion and succession developed by the Chicago School of urban sociology.) Debates and empirical research surrounding this topic now amount to a vast body of scholarship in urban geography and cognate ﬁelds; indeed, gentriﬁcation is often seen as the most important type of urban change across the global North over the past three decades [18]. This process involves a change in population characteristics with the arrival of younger, better educated people with higher incomes, a signiﬁcant increase in the cost of housing (including house values, rents, prop- erty taxes), particular styles of commercial revitalization, increased traﬃc on neighbourhood commercial streets, and ﬁnally, displacement of former residents to more aﬀordable neighbourhoods. Over the past 15 years or so, the forms taken by gentriﬁcation have diversiﬁed [19]. While private-sector actors (e.g., home renovators, landlords) still cause displace- ment, core city municipalities of large metropolitan areas are increasingly courting, even orchestrating gentriﬁcation. For example, they may facilitate new housing construction and the rebranding of neighbourhood commercial arteries [20, 21] so as to relaunch local economies, resolve ﬁscal crunches, and attract young and urbane singles and/or families, such that in some cases the long-standing trend for demographic aging of the innercity has been dramatically reversed. Consequently, scholarly debates are increasingly seeking to conceptualize and shed light on the various forms of “indirect” displacement that may be created when an existing population is not literally forced out of an area—because they live in social housing or are otherwise protected from displacement in the literal sense—but their local cultures and narratives of place, their access to familiar services, or their channels of local political representation are disrupted by the inﬂux of younger, more educated and wealthier newcomers [22–25]. A complementary insight from the social determinants of health literature [26] is that discrepancies between personal income (low) and neighbourhood status (high) can be associated with poor health, especially for older people. These trends create a need to deepen our understandings of how gentriﬁcation can aﬀect older people. Empirical work on its indirect negative eﬀects on older people is as yet very sparse, but with a few insightful exceptions, such as that of Lehman-Frisch [27] alluding to commercial gentriﬁcation’s culturally and economically exclusionary impact on long-term older adult residents of San Francisco and ﬁndings from Toulouse, France showing Journal of Aging Research how neighbourhood revitalization may generate among older adults a sense of being out of place to the point that they are reluctant to venture out of their house [3]. In contrast, little attention has been paid to the potentially positive experiences of some older people in contexts of gentriﬁcation [28]. For instance, with gentriﬁcation comes an increase in real estate assets and it may give a greater sense of security due to increased numbers of people on local shopping streets, improved public facilities and services, and more opportunities to meet people. For these reasons, we decided to launch a study to explore older adults’ perceptions of gentriﬁcation and to determine its eﬀects on both their social exclusion and inclusion. Drawing on concepts of social exclusion, direct and indirect displacement, and attachment, this paper addresses how older people experience change in two contrasting neighbourhoods in Montre´al, Canada: (1) La Petite-Patrie, a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood and (2) Lower Notre-Dame-de-Graˆce (NDG), a disadvantaged neighbourhood. This study forms part of a larger qualitative research project aiming to better understand the ways in which gentriﬁcation can contribute to the dynamics of social exclusion and inclusion of older people. As well as the Montre´al study areas, the research has an international comparative dimension embracing two neighbourhoods in Toulouse, France (Minimes and Marengo). (A comparison including the two French neighbourhoods is beyond the scope of this paper.) The aims of this study were to answer the following questions. (1) What place does the neighbourhood have in the everyday lives of older residents? (What places do they frequent? Where are their social networks situ- ated? What neighbourhood resources and services do they use?) (2) What neighbourhood changes do older residents notice? (3) How do neighbourhood changes aﬀect older resi- dents’ experiences of social exclusion/inclusion? 2. Theoretical Framework 2.1. Social Exclusion. This research project is framed pri- marily by a conceptualization of the dynamics of social exclusion [29]. Social exclusion originated as a sociological concept, emerging from European policy circles, especially in the 1990s [30, 31] extending into gerontological research and public policy debates, especially within the context of the United Kingdom [14, 15, 32–34]. More recently, Billette and Lavoie [29] deﬁne social exclusion as a process of nonacknowledgement and deprivation of rights and resources of certain segments of the population (in this case, older adults) that takes the shape of power dynamics between groups with divergent visions and interests. Such processes result in inequities and lead eventually to isolation from society in seven dimensions: (1) symbolic exclusion (negative images, overrepresentations, and invisibility); (2) identity exclusion (multiple identities are dismissed and a person’s identity is reduced to belonging to one singular group,