An MSU sociology senior submitted her honors thesis on gentrification in the Gallatin Valley this week from a one-bedroom apartment on West Babcock that rents for $1,950 per month, a detail her thesis advisor called “methodologically rich” and her parents called “the reason we took out a second mortgage.”

Hannah Bergmann, 22, spent fourteen months researching the displacement of long-term Bozeman residents by rising housing costs, conducting interviews with families who could no longer afford to live in the neighborhoods where they grew up. She wrote the final draft at her kitchen table, which is also her desk, her dining area, and the only flat surface in the apartment not occupied by thesis research.

“The irony isn’t lost on me,” Bergmann said. “I’m writing about people being priced out of Bozeman while paying Bozeman prices to write about people being priced out of Bozeman. My chapter on self-awareness practically wrote itself.”

The thesis, titled “Whose Valley Is It? Displacement, Identity, and the Commodification of Place in Bozeman, Montana,” spans 127 pages and includes interviews with 34 current and former Gallatin Valley residents, demographic analysis, and a section Bergmann describes as “the part where I accidentally made my landlord a case study.”

Her advisor, Dr. Michael Aldrin, said the work is among the strongest undergraduate theses he’s supervised. “Hannah brings a rare combination of academic rigor and lived experience to the topic,” he said. “She’s not just studying gentrification. She’s experiencing it in real time, which gives the work an immediacy that purely theoretical approaches lack.”

Bergmann said several interview subjects asked whether her research would change anything. “I told them honestly: probably not directly. But maybe it helps people understand what’s happening, which is the first step toward doing something about it.” She paused. “That’s what I tell myself, anyway.”

After graduation, Bergmann plans to pursue a master’s degree. She has not yet decided where. “Somewhere I can afford rent on a graduate stipend,” she said. “So not here.”

Her lease expires in June. Her landlord has already listed the apartment at $2,150.