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Description of  Renovating Value: HGTV and the Spectacle of Gentrification

HGTV has perfected stories about creating and capturing value in the housing market. But according to Robert Goldman, this lifestyle networks beloved flagship programs, Flip or Flop, Property Brothers, and Fixer Upperwhere people revitalize modern spaces and reinvent property valuesoffer fairy tales in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. The cable channels seductive, bingeable programs may show how to find and extract value from properties, but, in fact, they insidiously ignore the realities of the real estate and mortgage markets, housing inequality, gentrification, economic insecurity, and even homelessness. In effect, HGTV has turned house flipping into a master narrative about getting ahead in America during an era of otherwise uneasy economic prospects. Read more