A massive flood helped accelerate Karlin’s transformation from working-class district into a hub of cafes and offices. Many Roma families who once lived there never returned.
Patrons and servers bustle about inside a small cafe in the trendy Prague neighborhood of Karlin. Harry Styles blasts over the speakers as students and young professionals alike work on their laptops, relishing in the free Wi-Fi and strong oat milk lattes.
What visitors won’t notice are the people and characteristics that once defined one of the Czech capital’s traditional working-class districts – smokey pubs, industrial plants and laborers, and Roma families.
Those aspects of Karlin have been lost, pushed out after a disastrous flood in 2002 led to the acceleration of new development projects and waves of new, hipster arrivals, many from abroad. With gentrification came what many would call progress. But it also marginalized – or moved out entirely – many of the former residents who once called Karlin home and gave it a unique character.
The Gentrification Dilemma
Adela Petrovic Stettler is a researcher with the Urban and Regional Laboratory, a research group associating social geographers at Charles University in Prague. Stettler has been studying gentrification for nearly a decade. She has come to realize, she said, that many people might know the usual definition of this phenomenon – the transformation of a poorer area through an influx of wealthy investors who “fix up” the neighborhood, ultimately pushing out those who can no longer afford housing and other rising costs – often marginalized, socially vulnerable groups. But most people are less aware than they might think of the effects gentrification has on communities.
“Gentrification is not simply ‘urban improvement’ but a process with social costs that can undermine long-term urban sustainability,” Stettler said. “Understanding gentrification is essential for anyone who cares about fair access to housing, vibrant cities, and the future of urban life.”
Stettler first began researching gentrification during the second year of her master’s program, when she studied its effects in Brussels and Budapest.
“That project,” Stettler said, “made me realize how complex and multi‑layered gentrification is: it manifests differently in every place, yet it consistently produces conflict, inequality, and forms of displacement.
“Displacement erodes community networks, reduces social diversity, and creates political resistance to development,” the researcher said. “When neighborhoods become accessible only to high-income groups, cities lose essential workers, cultural richness, and social cohesion.”
Roma Displaced
The catalyst for development was the flood that ravaged large swaths of Central Europe in 2002 and hit the low-lying area of Karlin particularly hard, leaving the entire neighborhood under three meters of water. Many residents were left without homes – some temporarily, others more long-term – opening the gates for redevelopment.
Contractors, investors, and real estate moguls came in to rebuild and revive the neighborhood. Families who had lived in Karlin for generations could no longer afford to live there. They had been priced out of their homes.
“[Karlin] is one of the most dynamic neighborhoods in Prague, transforming from a stigmatized working‑class and Roma area into a ‘hip and trendy’ district associated with cafes, the creative industries, and high‑end housing,” Settler said.
Many of the displaced families in Karlin were Roma, and they were among the most negatively affected by the development efforts.
“[Roma] were not sufficiently covered legally before and after the flood,” said Jakub Cihak, director of R-Mosty, a group dedicated to providing social services and support for those facing social exclusion in the Czech Republic. “So, through the reconstruction of Karlin after the flood, many Roma families were forced to move out.”
Discrimination was a factor, say activists. Despite some improvements over the past few decades, Roma remain marginalized in the Czech Republic and many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. “A lot of [stereotypes] are very deeply embedded in the psyche of the majority population,” Cihak said. “You hear things like ‘Oh, [Roma] only steal. They are thieves. That’s all they do.’ ”
According to Roma rights activist Gwendolyn Albert, Roma are still treated as outsiders across Central and Eastern Europe even though historical records show Roma have lived in Europe since at least the 11th century.
“[Gentrification and the cost of housing] has really escalated during the last 20 years,” Albert said. “It’s worse here than it ever was. It’s actually never been this bad with regards to a sort of very segregated situation in housing,” she said, adding, “Their neighbors don’t want them [the Roma].”
In 2024, the European Committee of Social Rights, an arm of the continent’s foremost human-rights body, the Council of Europe, found that Czech housing policies leave vulnerable families inadequately protected, with Roma disproportionately affected. In a decision reported by Romea.cz, the committee cited weak safeguards against eviction, a shortage of social housing, and obstacles to obtaining housing benefits. It said the Czech government had not demonstrated that it was doing enough to prevent discrimination against Roma in access to housing.
When researching gentrification in Karlin, Stettler was surprised by the blatant racism many residents still direct at their Roma neighbors.
“I didn’t expect people to be so unaware of their racial biases,” Stettler said about one of her recent research projects. “Many respondents reproduced racialized narratives without recognizing them as such and often framed exclusionary attitudes as neutral or ‘just practical.’ The lack of awareness about how racialization shapes everyday interactions and neighborhood change was striking.”
No Easy Solution
A 2025 study by Stettler and fellow Charles University researcher Martin Ourednicek provided further evidence of the displacement that accompanied Karlin’s transformation. Published in the journal Population, Space, and Place, the study notes that most of the neighborhood’s vulnerable Roma population had already been displaced during the 2000s, particularly from areas affected by the floods. The researchers point to changes that began in the 1990s that contributed to the exodus, including property restitution and privatization. The floods accelerated a transformation already underway.
While some would argue that gentrification is a natural aspect of urban development and brings some improvements to historically underfunded neighborhoods, the process, if unmitigated, can and has added to the rising cost of living in Prague – an issue for everyone, says Stettler.
The Czech capital is already one of the most expensive cities in Central and Eastern Europe – a trend largely driven by the cost of housing, which is also the highest in the region.
“Gentrification is one of the central dynamics of today’s housing crisis,” Stettler said. “It does not affect only marginalized communities; it has reached a level where even middle‑class and higher‑income groups struggle to afford living in cities. If current trends continue, the majority of people will be priced out of urban centers, leading to increased segregation, longer commutes, and weakened social cohesion.”
The solution to gentrification’s problems is not at all simple. But there are some steps that can be taken to mitigate the issue, according to Stettler.
“There is no universal solution … because gentrification is shaped by local histories, policies, and market dynamics,” Stettler said. “However, several measures consistently help mitigate its harmful effects.”
Stettler listed rent regulation, stronger tenant protections, investment in social housing, and targeted support for marginalized communities among the possible steps that could be taken to alleviate problems with gentrification and ensure that urban development benefits a wider range of residents rather than only those with higher incomes.
“Inclusive development, where affordability and social needs are integrated, creates more stable markets, healthier communities, and better long-term returns,” Stettler said. “In other words, socially responsible development is not only ethical but economically rational.”
Madeline Smith, an editorial intern at Transitions this summer, is studying global politics, journalism, and Russian studies at Washington and Lee University in the United States.
