Breakdown of La création d'un nouveau quartier va attirer beaucoup de gens.
un
a / an (masculine)
les gens
the people
beaucoup de
a lot of / many
de
of / from / any (in negative sentences) / about (concerning)
Questions & Answers about La création d'un nouveau quartier va attirer beaucoup de gens.
How does nominalization work in the phrase La création d'un nouveau quartier?
Nominalization turns a verb clause into a noun phrase. Here, the verb créer (to create) becomes the noun la création (the creation). When a verb with a direct object—like créer un nouveau quartier—is nominalized, that object is linked to the new noun using the preposition de (here, d'). This lets us take an entire active idea ("someone is creating a new neighborhood") and use it as a single subject block.
Since gens is plural, why doesn't the sentence say beaucoup des gens?
Could I say beaucoup de personnes instead of beaucoup de gens in this sentence?
Yes, in this context they are basically interchangeable. Gens refers to an unspecified, collective group of people, which fits a crowd moving into a neighborhood perfectly. Personnes can also refer to people in general, but it becomes mandatory if you are using a specific number (like trois personnes) or if you want to emphasize the individuals rather than an anonymous mass.