Torres Pérez and Gómez Crespo compare Russafa and Lavapiés to examine how gentrification and touristification transform neighbourhood relations without producing identical outcomes. Their key finding is that Lavapiés remains a particularly complex configuration in which vulnerability, gentrification and touristification coexist, while forms of neighbourhood legitimacy expand to include both long-standing migrant populations and newer middle-class residents who value multicultural conviviality. The theoretical contribution lies in treating the “legitimate neighbourhood” as socially negotiated rather than given. Methodologically, comparison reveals that similar urban pressures can be mediated through different histories, relational structures and intensities of change. This is a useful corrective to deterministic accounts of café-led gentrification: new consumption spaces may participate in class restructuring while also becoming sites of encounter, recognition and incorporation into local life. The paper therefore offers a precise bridge between neighbourhood relations and place attachment, showing that belonging can be produced under conditions of transformation even when those transformations remain unequal and conflictual.