Even though there is a growing literature on the extent and impacts of state‐led gentrification and displacement, there is little attention to the process of change in restructuring neighbourhoods and how residents experience the threat of displacement. How is it to live in a house that is to be demolished? How does a neighbourhood change once it is targeted for gentrification? How do the residents experience the threat of displacement before actual displacement takes place? This paper addresses this gap and investigates the trajectory of neighborhood change in neighbourhoods targeted for gentrification. Based on an ethnographic study of the renewal process in Tarlabaşı /Istanbul, it discusses how residents live under the threat of displacement.