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Is Gentrification Really a Problem?

By Kelefa Sanneh

At the Golden Globe Awards, in January, Ennio Morricone won Best Original Score for his contribution to “The Hateful Eight,” the Quentin Tarantino Western. Accepting the award on Morricone’s behalf was Tarantino himself, who brandished the trophy in a gesture of vindication, suggesting that Morricone, despite all the honors he has received, is nevertheless underrated. Tarantino proclaimed Morricone his favorite composer. “And when I say favorite composer,” he added, “I don’t mean movie composer—that ghetto. I’m talking about Mozart. I’m talking about Beethoven. I’m talking about Schubert.” The backlash began a few moments later, when the next presenter, Jamie Foxx, approached the microphone. He smiled, looked around, and shook his head slightly. “Ghetto,” he said.

Tarantino’s comment, and Foxx’s one-word response to it, became a big story. In the Washington Post , a television reporter called Tarantino’s “ghetto” comment a “tone-deaf flub.” A BBC headline asked, “ IS THE WORD ‘ GHETTO ’ RACIST ?,” and the accompanying article summarized the thoughts of a Rutgers University professor who accused Tarantino of implying that “the ghetto was not a place for white, European, male composers.” Of course, “ghetto” is itself a European term, coined in the sixteenth century to describe the part of Venice to which Jews were confined. And Tarantino, in suggesting that the category of film composition was a ghetto, was using a common dictionary definition: “something that resembles the restriction or isolation of a city ghetto.” But “ghetto” is also an idiomatic way of dismissing something as cheap or trashy. And the adjectival “ghetto” owes its salience to the fact that a modern American ghetto is not only poor but disproportionately African-American. Recent census data showed that 2.5 million whites live in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with five million African-Americans. Earlier this year, Senator Bernie Sanders went further, saying, “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto.”

What is a ghetto, really—and who lives there? In “Dark Ghetto,” a pioneering 1965 sociological study, Kenneth Clark depicted Harlem, a paradigmatic ghetto, as a “colony of New York City,” defined by both its economic dependence and its segregation. In the decades that followed, scholars argued over the limits and the utility of the term—did it apply to any poor neighborhood, any ethnic enclave? The word may have various definitions but it arouses singular passions, which is why, in 2008, the sociologist Mario Luis Small suggested that his colleagues stop using it altogether. He argued that, in many ways, “poor black neighborhoods” were neither as distinctive nor as homogeneous as “ghetto” implied, and warned that academic theories of “ghetto” life might “perpetuate the very stereotypes their proponents often aim to fight.”

Mitchell Duneier seems to have taken Small’s pronouncement as a challenge; his response is “Ghetto” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a history of the concept which also serves as an argument for its continued usefulness. Duneier is a sociologist, too, sensitive to the sting of “ghetto” as an insult. But for him that sting shows us just how much inequality we still tolerate, even as attitudes have changed. Where the ghetto once seemed a menace, threatening to swallow the city like an encroaching desert, now it often appears, in scholarly articles and the popular press, as an endangered habitat. Academics and activists who once sought to abolish ghettos may now speak, instead, of saving them. This shift, as much as anything, accounts for the vigorous response to Tarantino’s comment: people wanted to know just what was so bad about a ghetto, anyway.

In 1945, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton published “Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City.” When they wrote about a “Black Ghetto” in Chicago, they were making a provocative analogy. Duneier notes that, in explaining how blacks were prevented from buying or renting homes in white neighborhoods, Drake and Cayton referred to “the invisible barbed-wire fence of restrictive covenants,” a formulation that was calculated to evoke gruesome images of the Third Reich. Despite the long history of Jewish ghettos in Europe, Duneier is at pains to show that the Nazi ghetto was not a revival of European history but a break from it. In the old Italian ghettos, Jews, who were ostracized by authorities, created their own tightly organized communities. The restrictions were onerous but not absolute; residents were sometimes permitted to leave during the day and return at night. (Duneier suggests that some inhabitants of the Roman ghetto might have viewed it as “a holy precinct, its barriers recalling the walls of ancient Jerusalem.”) By contrast, the Nazi version was a brutal, short-lived experiment. Duneier describes the debate, among Nazi officials, between “productionists,” who saw the inhabitants of Jewish ghettos as a useful source of slave labor, and “attritionists,” who preferred them dead.

The modern history of American ghettos, then, begins with a misunderstanding: the term acquired its awful resonance because of the Nazi ghettos, even though the conditions in American cities more closely resembled those of the older European ghettos, which were places capable of inspiring mixed feelings, among both inhabitants and scholars. American ghettos were the combined product of legal discrimination, personal prejudice, flawed urban planning, and countless economic calculations. For more than thirty years, starting in 1934, the Federal Housing Authority steered banks away from issuing mortgages to prospective buyers in poor black neighborhoods, which were deemed too risky; black tenants or prospective homeowners were often stymied by banks that doubted their creditworthiness, or by deed requirements that sought to maintain a neighborhood’s character and forbade blacks to buy or lease, or by intimidation and violence. Disconcertingly, white homeowners who worried that integration might erode the value of their homes may have been correct, even as their decision to flee exacerbated the problem. Drake and Cayton described their subjects as less bothered by segregation itself than by its stifling effects. “They wanted their neighborhoods to be able to expand into contiguous white areas as they became too crowded,” Duneier summarizes, “but they did not actually care to live among whites.”

Scholars who studied the ghetto tended to be motivated by sympathy for its residents, which often resulted in a complicated sort of sympathy for ghettos themselves. Clark, making his study of Harlem, spent time with Malcolm X, who insisted that segregation—“complete separation”—was the only way to solve America’s problems. Clark didn’t go that far, but he did express a certain skepticism about the wisdom and the prospects of school desegregation. Better, he thought, to “demand excellence in ghetto schools,” as Duneier puts it. Similarly, the anthropologist Carol Stack, in an influential 1974 book called “All Our Kin,” suggested that the black ghetto fostered social coöperation, knitting its residents together in extended “networks” of families and friends. At the same time, scholars sought to pin down the relationship between “ghetto” and its Spanish-language analogue, “barrio,” and to compare poor black neighborhoods with other enclaves. When an activist named Carl Wittman announced, in 1970, “We have formed a ghetto, out of self protection,” he was calling for a different kind of separatism: he was writing about his adopted home town of San Francisco, in a pamphlet titled “A Gay Manifesto.”

Duneier’s book makes it easy to see how, through all these changes, black ghettos in America have remained the central point of reference for anyone who wants to understand poverty and segregation. By some estimates, African-Americans are more isolated now than they were half a century ago. In a study published last year, scholars at Stanford reported that even middle-class African-Americans live in markedly poorer neighborhoods than working-class whites. And the linguist William Labov has suggested that, during the past two centuries, African-American speech patterns have been diverging from white speech patterns, owing mainly to “residential segregation.” By many measures—marriage rates, incarceration levels, wealth metrics—poor black neighborhoods stand out.

Even so, Duneier’s review of the scholarly literature cannot obscure the fact that the term “ghetto” does seem to have faded somewhat from common usage. In the past decade or so, the adjective has overshadowed the noun: a word that once conjured up intimidating neighborhoods now appears in unintimidating coinages like “ghetto latte.” (This is a coffee-shop term popularized in the aughts, in honor of the parsimonious customer who, instead of ordering an iced latte, orders espresso over ice, which is cheaper, and then dumps in half a cup of milk.) On hip-hop records, “ghetto” has largely given way to the warmer, more flexible “hood,” which sounds less like a condition and more like a community; Kendrick Lamar’s ode to the bad old days is called “Hood Politics,” not “Ghetto Politics.” The persistence of residential segregation has tightened the relationship between concentrated poverty and African-American neighborhoods, and made the word “ghetto” harder to use. “Ghetto” has come to sound like an indictment of a people as well as of a place.

Our doubts about the word may also have something to do with our changing view of cities. Many of the studies in Duneier’s book were conducted in the shadow of white flight and, starting in the nineteen-sixties, rising crime rates. The term suggested that a particular sort of dysfunction was native to urban environments and, possibly, inseparable from them. But fewer people talk about cities that way anymore: among contemporary urbanists, a dominant influence is Jane Jacobs, known for her lifelong commitment to the simple but radical notion that city life can be pleasurable. To judge from the literature, the major preoccupation among today’s urbanists is not the ghetto but a different G-word: “gentrification,” a process by which a ghetto might cease to be a ghetto.

It is an inelegant term, and must have seemed a strange one when it was first introduced, in a 1964 essay by Ruth Glass, a British sociologist. Glass, who wrote under the influence of Marx, was distressed to see that “the working class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle classes.” As the gentry moved in, the proletariat moved out, “until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed.” The story of gentrification was, curiously, the story of neighborhoods destroyed by desirability. As the term spread through academic journals and then the popular press, “gentrification,” like “ghetto,” became harder to define. At first, it referred to instances of new arrivals who were buying up (and bidding up) old housing stock, but then there was “new-build gentrification.” Especially in America, gentrification often suggested white arrivals who were displacing nonwhite residents and taking over a ghetto, although, in the case of San Francisco, the establishment of Wittman’s so-called “gay ghetto,” created as an act of self-protection, was also a species of gentrification. Even Clark’s “dark ghetto” was a target. In 1994, Andrew Cuomo, who was then at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told the Times , “If you expect to see Harlem as gentrified and mixed-income, it’s not going to happen.” He was, in due course, proved wrong.

A gentrification story often unspools as a morality play, with bohemians playing a central if ambiguous part: their arrival can signal that a neighborhood is undergoing gentrification, but so can their departure, as rising rents increasingly bring economic stratification. Stories of gentrification are by definition stories of change, and yet scholars have had a surprisingly hard time figuring out who gets displaced, and how.

In 2004, Lance Freeman, an urban-planning professor at Columbia, and the economist Frank Braconi, who ran the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, tried to answer the question. They produced a paper called “Gentrification and Displacement: New York City in the 1990s,” which has been roiling the debate ever since. In the paper, which was based on city survey data, they came close to debunking the very idea of gentrification. Looking at seven “gentrifying neighborhoods” (Chelsea, Harlem, the Lower East Side, Morningside Heights, Fort Greene, Park Slope, and Williamsburg), they found that “poor households” in those places were “19% less likely to move than poor households residing elsewhere.”

While traditional gentrification narratives suggest that poor residents, if not for the bane of gentrification, would have been fixed in place, the truth is that poorer households generally move more often than richer ones; in many poor neighborhoods, the threat of eviction is ever-present, which helps explain why rising rents don’t necessarily increase turnover. And gentrification needn’t be zero-sum, because gentrifying neighborhoods may become more densely populated, with new arrivals adding to, rather than supplanting, those currently resident. Freeman and Braconi suggested that in some cases improved amenities in gentrifying neighborhoods gave longtime residents an incentive to find a way to stay. At the same time, New York’s rent-control and rent-stabilization laws have protected some tenants from sharp rent increases, while others have an even more reliable refuge from rising prices: subsidized apartments in city buildings. “Public housing, often criticized for anchoring the poor to declining neighborhoods, may also have the advantage of anchoring them to gentrifying neighborhoods,” they wrote. When two scholars who took a dim view of gentrification, Kathe Newman and Elvin Wyly, did their own investigation, their conclusion was mild. “Although displacement affects a very small minority of households, it cannot be dismissed as insignificant,” they wrote. “Ten thousand displacees a year”—this was one estimate of New York’s total—“should not be ignored, even in a city of eight million.”

Newman and Wyly’s paper was called “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited,” in tribute to a decades-old question in urban sociology: Do tenants have a political right—a human right—to remain in their apartments? In New York, regulations like rent stabilization not only limit the amount by which some landlords can raise rents but also restrict a landlord’s ability to decline to renew a lease. In Sweden, the rules are tighter: rents are set through a national negotiation between tenants and landlords, which means that prices are low in Stockholm, but apartments are scarce; a renter in search of a long-term lease there might spend decades on a government waiting list. Another solution is to allow more and taller buildings, increasing supply in the hope of lowering prices. Often, the steepest rent increases are found in places, like San Francisco, that have stringent building regulations: a recent study of the city found that fewer poor residents had been displaced in neighborhoods with more new construction. In seeking to preserve what Ruth Glass called the “social character” of a neighborhood, anti-gentrification activists echo the language that was once used to defend racially restrictive covenants. Arguments over gentrification are really arguments over who deserves to live in a city, and the notion of a right to stay put is sometimes at odds with another, perhaps more fundamental right: the right to move.

Earlier this year, in the pages of National Review , Kevin D. Williamson devoted a typically astringent column to the kind of poor community that is rarely called a ghetto and even less often targeted for gentrification. A fellow-pundit had suggested that Donald Trump, unlike many other Republican politicians, spoke to and for white voters living lives of economic frustration and opioid dependency in towns like Garbutt, New York. Williamson, no fan of Trump, responded with a withering attack on Garbutt and its ilk. “The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die,” Williamson wrote. Their inhabitants, in his view, “need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.”

This diagnosis sparked an outcry. But was Williamson wrong to insist that people are more important than places? Arguments about gentrification sometimes imply that places matter most. Jane Jacobs, for instance, could seem to cherish Greenwich Village more than she cherished the people who lived there, to say nothing of the people who might have liked to join them, if only there had been more and cheaper housing. When it comes to the neighborhoods that Duneier would call ghettos, there is some evidence that the most humane approach is not to improve them but, in effect, to dismantle them, by encouraging their inhabitants to move. A program called Moving to Opportunity, which was initially judged a failure, now provides modest evidence that removing children from high-poverty neighborhoods can have lasting positive effects on their lifetime earnings. And a recent study by Deirdre Pfeiffer, a professor of urban planning, suggests that racial minorities encounter “more equitable” conditions in newly built suburbs than in cities.

The uneasy way we discuss ghettos and gentrification says something about our discomfort with the real-estate market, which translates every living space into a commodity whose value lies mainly outside our control. Things that happen across the street, down the block, or on the other side of town affect the worth of our homes, and this lack of control is predestined to frustrate capitalists and community organizers alike. “Bushwick is not for sale!” Letitia James, New York City’s Public Advocate, announced at a recent anti-gentrification protest in Brooklyn. She was hoping to get the city to force developers to set aside more units for low-income families, but she was also voicing a familiar and widely shared distaste for the way the character of a neighborhood is hostage to its market price. The opposite of gentrification is not a quirky and charming enclave that stays affordable forever; the opposite of gentrification is a decline in prices that reflects the transformation of a once desirable neighborhood into one that is looking more like a ghetto every day.

In a recent Times Op-Ed, the Harlem historian Michael Henry Adams lamented the changes in his neighborhood, complaining that “poor black neighborhoods” were “irresistible to gentrification.” But New York is an unusual place, and it’s possible that the conversation about gentrification has been distorted by our focus on neighborhoods like Harlem. A recent study found that Chicago neighborhoods that were forty per cent or more African-American were the least likely to experience gentrification. This statistic was cited by the journalist Natalie Y. Moore in her new book about her city, “The South Side.” She recounts the pride she felt when she bought a condo in a seemingly up-and-coming South Side neighborhood: she paid a hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars, and she was shocked when, five years later, an assessor told her that its value had depreciated to fifty-five thousand. She writes about herself as a “so-called gentrifier,” adding, ruefully, that “black Chicago neighborhoods don’t gentrify.”

In May, on CNN, the comedian W. Kamau Bell hosted a one-hour program about gentrification in Portland, Oregon. He has a keen eye for irony and a high tolerance for awkward situations, so he walked around the city, chuckling at hipsters—a word at least as hard to define as “ghetto” or “gentrification”—and listening sympathetically to residents of the city’s dwindling African-American neighborhoods. An older woman named Beverly said that her neighborhood was gone; standing on the porch of her mauve-trimmed house, she gestured across the street at a new apartment building going up, which seemed likely to ruin her lovely view. To hear the other side, Bell met with Ben Kaiser, a local developer, who was unapologetic. Bell told him, “I talked to an older black woman in this neighborhood, and every so often somebody knocks at her door or calls her and is offering to buy her home, even though she’s made it clear that she wants to keep her home. And somebody’s telling them to make that phone call.”

“We always think it’s a somebody, and in my opinion it’s an economic force—there’s no one orchestrating this outcome,” Kaiser said. “What’s happened, historically, is they’re offered a tremendous amount of money, and they’re kind of nuts not to take it. At some point, her kids—or she—will say, ‘I am nuts not to take this offer.’ ”

Bell was unconvinced. He wasn’t sure how many new “twelve-dollar juice bars” and “high-end vegan barbecue” restaurants the neighborhood needed, and he worried that the old neighborhood wouldn’t survive. In the ghetto narrative, a poor neighborhood falls victim to isolation; in the gentrification narrative, a poor neighborhood falls victim to invasion. These stories are not necessarily contradictory—they reflect a common conviction that the sorrows and joys of neighborhood change tend to be unequally shared. One effect of gentrification is to make this inequality harder to ignore. The call to save a neighborhood is most compelling when it serves as a call to help a neighborhood’s neediest inhabitants. That might mean helping them stay. But it might also mean helping them leave. ♦

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jews in sixteenth-century Venice were confined to the ghetto by papal decree. The papal decree applied to Jews in Rome.

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By Adam Gopnik

By John Colapinto

By Adam Iscoe

By Helen Rosner

Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy

Examining the negative impacts of gentrification.

September 17, 2017 by bmc85

by Emily Chong

Change to cities, neighborhoods, and communities is inevitable—however, with the latest tide of change, many communities are experiencing gentrification. Gentrification occurs when “communities experience an influx of capital and concomitant goods and services in locales where those resources were previously non-existent or denied.” [1] Usually, gentrification occurs when more affluent people move to or become interested in historically less affluent neighborhoods. Gentrification is a phenomenon subject to much debate—some believe that its effects are purely positive, while others argue that gentrification brings about harmful consequences. I argue the latter and examine the problems that gentrification causes.

Some argue that gentrification is beneficial since the gentrification process creates more development, rapid economic investment, and support of projects related to consumption and entertainment. [2] The incoming population of more affluent residents and people of privilege is directly connected to an increase in resource allocation to schools, stores, and other development. While these effects can be beneficial, the gentrification process becomes detrimental when it forces original residents to leave the neighborhood through exponentially increasing property prices, coercion, or buyouts. If there is no widespread displacement, and the shifts in the neighborhood are carefully planned through with community input and involvement, gentrification can be a good thing for the community, increasing “socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic integration.” [3] However, this is rarely ever the case.

Gentrification usually leads to negative impacts such as forced displacement, a fostering of discriminatory behavior by people in power, and a focus on spaces that exclude low-income individuals and people of color.

During gentrification, poorer communities are commonly converted to high-end neighborhoods with expensive housing options such as high-rises and condominiums. [4] As property prices increase, the original residents of the neighborhood are forced out in a variety of ways. First, with an increase in the prices of buildings, the gap between the price of the building and the income that the landlord gets from renting the building grows bigger; landlords thus increase rent prices, which forces out the low-income residents. [5] As building prices continue to increase, the problem exacerbates because it becomes even more profitable to convert these apartment buildings into non-residential areas. Additionally, since investors can earn more money from selling buildings, real-estate dealers have less incentive to improve the buildings. The real estate dealers instead sell the buildings at higher prices. This cycle of rising building prices continues until only large and well-financed investors are able to continue. [6]

Because of the potential for large profits from the conversion of ordinary living spaces to high-rise or office buildings, unscrupulous landlords have used immoral means to intentionally displace low-income residents from rent-controlled areas. [7] For example, a development corporation in New York Chinatown applied for a special zoning permit for the construction of an apartment on a plot with rent-control housing; before the city decided whether or not to issue the permit, the developer had already evicted the tenants and demolished the rent-controlled building. [8] The residents stated that the corporation forced them out of the building through deprivation of services, harassment, gang intimidation, and arson. [9]

Even when the living spaces in a gentrifying area remain residential, the developers attract new residents with higher incomes because of the services and amenities that improve in conjunction with the increase cost of living and property values. [10] The influx of these new and more affluent residents puts pressure on the housing market that produce inflated rents and prices that effectively displace low-income residents. [11] Furthermore, during rezoning, the new residents, who are in the groups with the “most spatialized privilege” and “high economic [standing, have] the power to shape city policy to protect themselves from further gentrification that might have priced them out of the area.” [12]

Displacement from these aforementioned methods is disproportionately borne by low-income individuals of color, many of whom are elderly individuals. [13] Physical frailty makes it more challenging for elderly individuals to resist the actions that landlords take to remove tenants. [14] Researchers have also found that elderly people are more intensively affected by social changes around them; for example, many older adults cited loss of friendships or community networks as a reason to move. [15] This is a problem that builds on itself— with gentrification, many people are rapidly forced out of their neighborhoods, leading to less community networks and more reason for elderly low-income individuals, who are already facing struggles from rising prices, to give up on their homes and move out of the neighborhood.

In addition to displacement due to rising property values and coercive techniques, low-income individuals and people of color also can face exclusion from the newly planned spaces in the gentrifying location. [16] Common in gentrification efforts is the urban planning shift from “fostering community formation” to “investing the city with money and consumption-oriented spaces that resemble suburban shopping malls that exclude low-income and people of color.” [17] Instead of community integration, there is selective development and enforcement of distinction between different areas. [18] Moreover, when developers do build houses, they are not building these houses for low income families. There are frequent cuts in low-income housing federal assistance, and so new buildings are usually intended for upper-income families. [19] These spaces are societally problematic because they disproportionately exclude people of color and low-income individuals.

Most gentrification occurs because of a lack of policies that value community input, offer equitable rezoning policies, and provide intentional housing options. Without policies that attempt to remedy the trends that cause forced displacement, gentrification will continue to dismantle and displace lower-income communities. To develop such policies, we must recognize the disproportionate and destructive effects of gentrification.

[1] Sabiyha Prince, African Americans and Gentrification in Washington, DC: Race, Class and Social Justice in the Nation’s Capital 2 (2014).

[2] Arlene Dávila, Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City 1-2 (2004) (explaining claims of proponents of the gentrification process).

[3] Lance Freeman, There goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Group Up 39 (2011).

[4] Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown 51 (rev. ed. 1999).

[5] Id. at 51-52.

[6] Id. at 51.

[9] Id at 52.

[10] Winnie Tam Hung, Enforcing Stillness: Chinatown Youth and Geographies of Illegality, 123 (Oct. 2011) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Davis), https://search.proquest.com/docview/937030797.

[11] Rowland Atkinson, The hidden costs of gentrification: Displacement in central London . 15 J. Hous. Built Env’t 307, 307 (2000); See also Prince, supra note 1, at 12.

[12] Hung, supra note 10.

[13] See Atkinson, supra note 11, at 123.

[16] Hung, supra note 10, at 106.

[19] Kwong, supra note 5, at 52.

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What we talk about when we talk about gentrification

The worst problems are in the neighborhoods that aren’t gentrifying.

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“Was anyone really asking for a gentrified Gone Girl?” reads a one-line, half-star review of Promising Young Woman .

“Graphic Novels Are Comic Books, But Gentrified” one headline to a Jacobin article proclaims.

Gentrification appends so many words these days — “ graffiti ,” “ rock music ,” “ font ,” “ thrifting ” — that it bears scant similarity to its original definition. In 1964, sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification. As Steven Thomson explained for Curbed , Glass was describing a “class phenomenon … by adapting the British-ism ‘gentry’” to describe the process of “middle class liberal arts intelligentsia” moving into her primarily working-class London neighborhood.

The term flew across the Atlantic and made its home in the United States, where similar trends would begin making their way through cities over the last few decades of the 20th century. Google Books data shows the term “gentrification” didn’t really take off in the US until the late ’90s and has been steadily growing in use ever since.

There isn’t an agreed-upon empirical definition of gentrification among scholars, which makes it difficult to talk about it with any certainty. But talk we do: From Indianapolis to Austin , on a presidential debate stage and on a panel on bike lanes , and of course, on Twitter . Any time we talk about housing, the g-word inevitably pops up.

Our focus on gentrification might lead people to believe that it is the dominant form of inequality in American cities (our outsized focus on the phenomenon may be due in part to the fact that gentrification scholars, journalists, and consumers of digital media tend to live in gentrifying neighborhoods themselves ). But the core rot in American cities is not the gentrifying neighborhoods: It is exclusion, segregation, and concentrated poverty.

White, wealthy neighborhoods that have refused class and racial integration have successfully avoided much scrutiny as gentrification has taken center stage in urban political fights. On the other hand, predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods often don’t gentrify due to disinvestment and centuries of racist and classist policies .

And yet, gentrification captures our imagination, providing the visual juxtaposition of inequality. While stagnant, segregated neighborhoods are an accepted backdrop of American life, fast-changing, diverse neighborhoods and the culture clash that accompanies gentrification are the battlefield where all the disagreements come to the forefront.

Gentrification as the juxtaposition of the haves and have-nots

In his 2019 paper “ Hoboken Is Burning: Yuppies, Arson, and Displacement in the Postindustrial City ,” Princeton historian Dylan Gottlieb documented the violent displacement Puerto Rican residents faced between 1978 and 1983 as the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, gentrified. As thousands of young professionals flooded into Hoboken, the potential sale or rent price for converted units rose precipitously, and “property owners faced powerful incentives to displace low-income tenants.”

As a result, “nearly five hundred fires ripped through tenements and rooming houses in the square-mile city,” Gottlieb writes. “Most [displaced residents] never returned to Hoboken. Nearly every fire, investigators determined, had been the result of arson.” In sum, 55 people died and over 8,000 were made homeless.

Today, this sort of violent displacement is not what most people mean when they talk about gentrification. But what, exactly, they’re talking about is less clear, and the muddled debate often produces muddled policy goals.

A recent New York Times article features a Black Brooklyn homeowner who went to talk to a new white neighbor and was mistaken as a panhandler: “I went over to strike conversation and before I could finish a sentence, he told me that he didn’t have any money,” the man told the Times. Stories like this of Black homeowners watching their neighborhoods change around them abound, often with the earlier residents experiencing culture shock as the new entrants treat them or longstanding cultural markers with disdain.

In a Twitter thread about the article, educator and historian Erica Buddington recounted how when a package was mistakenly delivered to her new neighbor’s house and she went to retrieve it, the neighbor immediately assumed she was a salesperson and shut the door in her face.

Beyond these frustrating and racist microaggressions is the concern about displacement and harms that might befall those who stay. A 2020 study by then-University of Florida sociologist Brenden Beck showed that “on average, calls to the police increased after a neighborhood’s middle-class population grew.” While Beck did not find that those calls translated into more stops or low-level arrests, he did find that “police made more order-maintenance and proactive arrests following real estate market growth.”

This is absolutely the way my new neighbors are. My package was delivered to the wrong house, and a guy answered the door and said, “I don’t want anything your selling.” When I told him that I was looking for a package, he said, “What the post office does isn’t my problem.” pic.twitter.com/Qtmm8OWdS2 — Erica Buddington (@ericabuddington) August 18, 2021

Yet while gentrifying neighborhoods create those types of interactions between neighbors or heavier “order maintenance” policing, the gentrification isn’t the root issue. Segregating neighborhoods does not get rid of these sentiments or the harms they cause: it simply hides them. In a wealthy, white enclave like the Upper East Side, there aren’t somehow fewer people who assume any Black person on their street is begging for money than there are in gentrifying neighborhoods. In fact, there are likely more . Gentrifying neighborhoods pull back the veil and allow for these worlds to collide, displaying the vast differences in income, access to education, and government protection and investment.

All of the problems people worry about when they invoke gentrification — displacement, police action against people of color, lack of investment, predatory landlords — are also present in segregated neighborhoods, often even more so .

As George Washington University professor Suleiman Osman wrote in his 2011 book The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn : “Stories abounded of renters [in Brooklyn] being pressured by landlords to leave revitalizing areas. But non-revitalizing blocks with high rates of abandonment and demolition saw rates of displacement that were just as high.”

What is gentrification?

Defining gentrification is hard, even for the experts.

The Urban Displacement Project, a research and policy group at the University of California Berkeley, defines it as:

a process of neighborhood change that includes economic change in a historically disinvested neighborhood — by means of real estate investment and new higher-income residents moving in — as well as demographic change — not only in terms of income level, but also in terms of changes in the education level or racial make-up of residents.

While this covers the conceptual ideas, determining which neighborhoods are gentrifying has been difficult for researchers. Not for lack of trying: MIT urban studies PhD candidate Benjamin Preis and his study co-authors compared four different models of gentrification and displacement risk and found “striking differences between the models.” For instance, one weighted “access to public transit” as a gentrification risk factor while the others didn’t, and another didn’t include data on racial composition.

The researchers applied all of the models to Boston and found that there are “only seven [census] tracts that all four models agreed were either gentrifying or at risk of gentrification or displacement.”

“[The models] disagree on the front end, they disagree on what we call gentrification, and then not surprisingly, they really disagree on the back end to actually map out what those neighborhoods are,” Preis told Vox. “You end up with radical disagreement. One method identified nearly 120 tracts facing displacement pressure and another had just 39.”

As Columbia University researcher Brett McMillan explains in the publication Shelterforce, while people often assume that gentrification happens predominantly in overwhelmingly Black or brown neighborhoods, that is not actually the case. He details research finding “ Chicago neighborhoods with Black populations of greater than 40 percent experienced significantly lower rates of gentrification” and “ white ‘invasion’ into census tracts with Black populations of 50 percent or more has been a relatively infrequent phenomenon.”

The other big issue with defining gentrification is attempting to quantify physical displacement. Widely viewed as the most pernicious byproduct of gentrification, the evidence that gentrification causes physical displacement is a mixed bag.

Displacement is another phenomenon that is difficult to define. The reasons people move are not cataloged in any database, and poor Americans are notably transient due to financial insecurity. Additionally, defining “forced” displacement is difficult — if someone can afford a one-bedroom apartment in their community but not a larger home, are they being displaced if they have a kid and move to a more affordable neighborhood? People move for a variety of reasons: In 2015, FiveThirtyEight calculated that the average American moved more than 11 times in their lives, indicating that there are very few “longtime residents” of anywhere.

Importantly, research by preeminent eviction scholar Matthew Desmond “found no evidence that renters residing in gentrifying or in racially- and economically-integrated neighborhoods had a higher likelihood of eviction.” But perhaps increasing rents can cause displacement without evictions. (The way to avoid that would be to keep rents low by building more housing and preserving existing affordable housing, but more on that later.)

While the arson in Hoboken was a clear-cut case of forced displacement, measuring the insidious ways that financially insecure Americans could be nudged out of their neighborhoods is extremely difficult.

The research literature in this space is mixed. Some researchers have found that “rather than rapid displacement, gentrification was associated with slower residential turnover among [disadvantaged] households.” Other research , however, found that “between 8,300 and 11,600 households per year were displaced in New York City between 1989 and 2002 ... between 6.6 and 9.9 percent of all local moves among renter households.”

Overall, the research literature leans toward the view that gentrifying neighborhoods can lead to displacement, but they don’t have to. Gentrification can bring with it the promise of integration and sorely needed investment that can increase residents’ quality of life — but only if disadvantaged residents are set up to take part in the benefits of increased investment.

Most urban dwellers live in poor neighborhoods that stay poor, or in higher-income neighborhoods doing their damnedest to stay that way

The cry of “fire, fire, gentrifier” spread through city neighborhoods last year during some of the racial justice protests. The battle lines in these neighborhoods are not clear but the anger directed at the yuppies brunching on the sidewalks was palpable. The group that conspicuously gets to avoid this conflict? Wealthy (often white) urban and suburban homeowners who have long refused to allow either integration or even yuppies to live in their segregated neighborhoods.

Chants of “Fire fire, gentrifier. Black people used to live here!” as the crowd makes their way through Logan Square this evening in Chicago #Chicago #AdamToledo pic.twitter.com/04S1qHUQvU — Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) April 17, 2021

While there are very real harms that accompany gentrification, it’s important not to lose the forest for the trees.

Gentrifying neighborhoods are “very tiny pieces of the story,” says UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning Karen Chapple, who leads the school’s Urban Displacement Project (UDP), which has worked to map gentrification in several US cities.

When Chapple was doing her first map of the Bay Area in 2005, she says, “about 10 percent of the neighborhoods were gentrifying but about 40 percent were just getting poorer over time. And it wasn’t the story that anybody wanted to hear. ... Systemic poverty and racism is so hard ... and [gentrification] is also much more visible.”

Looking at UDP’s work in Southern California , they find that in San Diego County only “7 percent of tracts experienced risk of or ongoing gentrification/displacement.” In Chicago, they find that only 18 percent of low-income households “live in low-income neighborhoods at risk of, or already experiencing gentrification and/or displacement.”

What’s happening in the rest of the neighborhoods? Segregation and/or concentrated poverty, which have been constant companions to disadvantaged communities.

In Denver, Colorado, they find that only “17 percent of neighborhoods were at risk of gentrification,” and “45 percent of Denver’s moderate-to-high-income neighborhoods demonstrated risk of or ongoing exclusion of lower-income households.”

Racial and income segregation locks low-income people in a trap of concentrated poverty . The best schools are relegated to the highest-income neighborhoods, good jobs often exist in either exclusive or gentrifying neighborhoods, and businesses are less willing to take root in an area of concentrated poverty because there are fewer customers. All of this is a vicious cycle that traps low-income Americans. It also hinders their ability to foster growth on their own because financial insecurity makes people transient and lacking in time and energy to build community.

Meanwhile, homeowners in well-off neighborhoods have cemented systems of local control through rules like exclusionary zoning to keep their neighborhoods prohibitively expensive for lower-income Americans, including many Black and brown Americans.

Zoning laws are the rules and regulations that decide what types of homes can be built where. While this can sound innocuous, exclusionary zoning is anything but. These rules have a dark history in the United States as a tool of racial and economic segregation, used explicitly to keep certain races, religions, and nationalities out of certain neighborhoods. And while the explicit racism has been wiped from the legal text, the effect of many of these rules remains the same: keeping affordable housing and the people who need it away from the wealthiest Americans.

City by city, the message is clear: Segregation and concentrated poverty are the true blights of urban life, despite our fascination with gentrification.

How to ethically create integrated neighborhoods

Gentrification does carry with it real harms, but there are ways to reduce those and to provide a pathway for integrated, equitable cities.

Integration is not a panacea, but research shows that following gentrification, “children benefit from increased exposure to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and some are more likely to attend and complete college.” Further, gentrification can allow existing homeowners in a community to benefit from the rising property values, as long as anti-displacement policies exist to ensure property tax payments don’t price people out.

There are a few other policies the US could pursue to mitigate the harms that accrue to disadvantaged communities.

First, the economic literature is clear that increased housing production reduces rents. It also ensures that new entrants don’t bid up the price of existing homes but rather turn to new construction for their housing needs. The evidence that does exist showing that modern-day gentrification leads to displacement links that displacement to rising rents. Reducing that pressure is paramount to stopping unwanted displacement. In Hoboken, New Jersey, during the violent evictions and arsons, the vacancy rate fell below 1 percent by the start of the 1980s. This supply crunch contributes to the incentive for property owners to push out lower-income tenants.

Second, tenant protection policies could help forestall some evictions. A right to counsel in housing proceedings, for example, would rebalance power between low-income tenants and property owners seeking to evict due to potential profits from selling or converting the property for higher-income use. It’s also important for cities to work to preserve existing affordable housing , especially as new housing gets built.

Third, rezoning of wealthy white segregated neighborhoods could slow the speed at which gentrifying neighborhoods change, and help tackle segregation. Slowing gentrification can ensure that local officials can respond to protect existing residents while also allowing the benefits of the phenomenon to accrue.

These types of interventions can provide a roadmap for how to ethically integrate urban neighborhoods.

None of this is to undermine the very real cultural conflict that gentrification brings. Even if you’re able to stay in your neighborhood and your home, watching store after store pop up that doesn’t serve your community or isn’t available to you at your income level can be deeply alienating. It’s no wonder that people who have faced centuries of disinvestment grow angry as public and private money flows into their neighborhoods only after high-income, college-educated people choose to move there. Even if those people are not wholly responsible for the inequality, the blatant injustice is hard to ignore.

Taken all together, it becomes clear why we focus on gentrification while the unseen culprits (segregated enclaves) are able to avoid controversy: Gentrification is the most visual manifestation of inequality in urban life.

“Gentrification is a cultural sphere to work out feelings of resentment around inequality. ... Those feelings aren’t to be discounted,” Gottlieb argues. “This is a manifestation of a long-running sense of ‘I am not welcomed in the city, I don’t have a right to the city.’ Sometimes those feelings can be worked out in the cultural terrain of gentrification, even indeed if the people moving in aren’t the proximate cause for them leaving.”

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The Gentrification Reality: A Response

We must continue studying and fighting gentrification, rather than abandon the concept altogether.

Photo by Flickr user Umberto Brayj, CC BY 2.0

https://flickr.com/photos/ubrayj02/29476097847/in/photolist-LUGGXz-2h9mDUo-acbbJN-8j1LZU-2W855Q-TWya8i-2g3SHm-5heS2i-a5vZtU-frxe1f-as4Z7a-K13i1P-cUtt3u-KTCEhW-KPEbyV-p9nXzR-SS2uDL-7Ss5XU-4xag94-2iiFLU1-hbiX5-7nTy8D-9jN3bA-xyXRE7-5YGVAV-2mfuJGb-KSdz8S-Ny9yVV-qpT8qq-KPCF4K-KPCHXF-5j9KzZ-g9WMtf-2fYqhe-7NhHAo-7BoFQj-2fYsuv-bsPCPZ-mzYG2-2dsZR9r-2g3U4Q-2m9JRYS-2fYrsn-9jJXPF-R6pDQP-7zsvzi-7UBHi4-2dnvwdr-2fYth2-2fYv9R

Extracted. Dislocated. Enslaved. Confined. Dispossessed. Erased. Blamed. Policed. Criminalized. Disappeared.

These were the words that greeted me at a recent exhibit by artist, sociologist, and activist Shana M. griffin , whose work was on display at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans last spring. The exhibit was called “ DISPLACING Blackness: Cartographies of Violence, Extraction, and Disposability ” and I was there to witness it with a local renters’ rights group. Together, we looked through the exhibit, which contained in-depth engagements with histories of Black dispossession and dislocation. And together we discussed current challenges to housing justice in New Orleans, from evictions to short-term rentals to, yes, gentrification.

A few weeks later, I opened my laptop to a Slack message: a collaborator had sent me a Shelterforce article called “ ‘Gentrification’ Is Not the Real Problem .” This collaborator and I were working on research related to redevelopment in New Orleans, and so engaging with this piece seemed important. To the author Brett McMillan ’s immense credit, he has stirred up a thought-provoking conversation, at least amongst my comrades. But it was difficult for me to reconcile these two experiences: on one hand, an article that seeks to dismiss gentrification as a phenomenon we should care about, and on the other, the community organizers and others who care about it deeply. And so, as a scholar of housing and gentrification, I decided to pen an alternative point of view, framed largely as a response to the article. We must continue studying and fighting gentrification, rather than abandon the concept altogether.

McMillan argues that gentrification is not a problem because it’s based on “debunked theories” of displacement and racial change, and because it draws attention away from more “real” crises, like neighborhood inequality, affordable housing, and increasing cost burden. Both claims, I contend, are needlessly provocative, and rely on the selective disregard of certain evidence.

I’ll start with an obvious point: that a focus on gentrification is not antagonistic to a focus on other issues—in fact, gentrification is about housing affordability, cost burden, and inequality. As scholars like Neil Smith point out, gentrification is about capital flow, and how areas may be disinvested—and later re-invested—of resources at the whims of those who control capital, with immense implications for everybody else. When capital investment begins to creep back into some urban neighborhoods, others are left further neglected, and we end up with luxury condos instead of the decent affordable housing we need. New demand from new residents stresses the housing market, not just in gentrifying areas, but everywhere. Neighborhoods are not siloed, but rather are all parts of one city. Rising rents in one area surely don’t stay put—cost-burdened households move to progressively poorer neighborhoods , possibly stressing the housing markets there, too. Or they find ways to stay put , spending ever-increasing percentages of their income on rent.

[ RELATED: What Does “Gentrification” Really Mean?]

An excellent way to illustrate the reaches of gentrification beyond any individual neighborhood is through the Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides rental subsidies based on a Fair Market Rent that is usually calculated using ZIP code or metropolitan area—in other words, encompassing at least several neighborhoods. Rising rents in the next neighborhood over, therefore, impact what affordable housing looks like in this neighborhood, too. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit , linked to an area median income threshold, relies on a similar logic.

But don’t take my word for all of this—McMillan actually says it better. Imagine my surprise when, midway through the article talking about how gentrification isn’t a real problem, the author describes “a process that is far more insidious …” and proceeds to spend a paragraph describing gentrification near-perfectly. “Wealthier residents trickle back into a select group of desirable neighborhoods. . . . The attraction to these neighborhoods siphons away investment and interest from other parts of the city, concentrating resources. Thus, for people who happen to own homes outside gentrifying areas . . . their home equity often lags behind.” Yes. Exactly. This is part of gentrification too—not just the coffee shops and vintage boutiques.

Let’s also discuss evidence , and what exactly constitutes “reality,” a word that comes up several times in McMillan’s piece. To show that gentrification has been “debunked,” a few quantitative articles are presented, each of which appear to show that displacement, or a coerced housing move, is not more prevalent in gentrifying areas. But qualitative studies—ones that incorporate interviews or ethnography instead of numbers—tend to find the opposite. Articles and books drawn from the words of communities in Chicago , San Francisco , Washington, D.C ., and many other places consistently affirm the deleterious effects of gentrification.

This tracks with the observations of Japonica Brown-Saracino , who writes about a “methodological divide” in gentrification studies between qualitative and quantitative scholars. Basically, whenever researchers go out and talk to people, many view gentrification as a problem in their city or neighborhood and speak of dislocation and erasure. But then when we look at the numbers, some studies find limited evidence of actual displacement. So what should our response be to these disparate findings? Should we draw a narrow view of ‘reality’, double down on the numbers, and tell these residents that they’re wrong? Or should we perhaps acknowledge that something is happening here, something that our quantitative measurements aren’t quite capturing, and therefore work to adjust the measurements?

I use the word “some” here because, actually, the quantitative literature is much more nuanced on the relationship between displacement and gentrification than to simply say, “No, it doesn’t exist.” For instance, Isaac William Martin and Kevin Beck , in a 2018 study, do not find evidence that homeowners in gentrifying areas are displaced—but do show that renters in gentrifying areas are. Indeed, Julie Mah utilizes six years of eviction records in Detroit to show how tenants are moved from a gentrifying downtown neighborhood to the city’s periphery. Elora Lee Raymond and colleagues look at investor purchases of multifamily rental housing in Atlanta, and find that they tend to predict a spike in eviction judgments and a loss of Black residents in the area. The numbers are there, if not simply ignored.

Jacob Carlson dives further into what we mean when we talk about measuring displacement—which, after all, is an extremely difficult thing to get accurate numbers on. He notes several different ways of doing so, all of which produce different findings and have different implications for gentrification studies. I add this just to point out that numbers are not monolithic, nor unbiased (even if they’re often painted as such, and can therefore be viewed as more “real”). There are numerous ways of measuring and presenting concepts like displacement and gentrification and building toward further specificity should be a goal of ours, not throwing out the concept entirely.

All of this isn’t even to mention that gentrification is so much more than housing displacement. Gentrification shows us that when places do change, rarely do their most vulnerable residents have much of a say in how that’ll go down. And so longtime residents lose to gentrification the institutions that cater to them . They may lose a sense of community , a sense of belonging . They are more heavily policed . Cultural shifts in favor of the whiter and wealthier may lead to conflicts over the schools that their children attend and norms surrounding public spaces . As essayist Hanif Abdurraqib so movingly writes in A Little Devil in America , “Much of our living is an act of painting over an existence before ours, and my understanding of that doesn’t dim the pain I feel at the new unfamiliarity of spaces I’ve been in.” While these concerns are perhaps not always our most pressing, given more immediate crises of shelter, they are vital to a full realization of community development.

[ RELATED: What We Don’t Know About Development and Displacement ]

This is also why it is a mistake to offhandedly dismiss the racialized components of gentrification, as McMillan does in the couple of paragraphs where he “tackle[s] race.” In the exceptional book Chocolate Cities , authors Marcus Anthony Hunter and Zandria F. Robinson write of how Black folk, inheritors of neglected and disinvested neighborhoods, used these spaces to create culture, power, and networks. Erasure and appropriation of these narratives and cultures result whenever white people place value in these places again. “Gentrification has also shifted and often devastated Black neighborhoods across urban America,” they write, an argument that is confirmed in other studies as well. I would also point out that perhaps it is not for white academics to decide what is and what isn’t the “problem” in communities of color. Perhaps we should listen carefully before making bold claims about a “reality” that we don’t experience.

Overall, there are plenty of ways in which the field of gentrification studies could improve. The concept does often suffer from a lack of definitional specificity. There is still much reckoning to be done with regard to race, the white appropriation of space, and the resistance of people of color. And of course, there is this “methodological divide” that could use some bridging. There is so much more to understand about housing affordability, evictions, policing, gentrification, and how all of these operate together. There’s a lot of work to do, so let’s do it.

But abandon the concept altogether? I think not.

About the Author

AJ Golio is working on his doctorate in sociology at Tulane University. Golio studies gentrification and policing in American cities.

• affordable housing
• displacement
• gentrification

2 thoughts on “ The Gentrification Reality: A Response ”

Thank you for a thoughtful and useful response. However, there is a point that is not presented as fully, as it should. You write:

“Basically, whenever researchers go out and talk to people, many view gentrification as a problem in their city or neighborhood and speak of dislocation and erasure. But then when we look at the numbers, some studies find limited evidence of actual displacement. So what should our response be to these disparate findings? Should we draw a narrow view of ‘reality’, double down on the numbers, and tell these residents that they’re wrong? Or should we perhaps acknowledge that something is happening here, something that our quantitative measurements aren’t quite capturing, and therefore work to adjust the measurements?”

The proposed contradiction (my term) between qualitative and quantitative studies related to urban gentrification is not well-grounded in studies that have incorporated the voices of residents. In our work in Boston we find that it is residents who insist on both, quantitative and qualitative data. In two studies referenced noted below, residents utilized quantitative data to contextualize their stories. There is no divided methodology here, but rather a rich balance of hard data (census and administrative) that helps to highlight important stories and historical experiences at the local level. This suggests that the way to ensure such balance is to incorporate the voices and experiences, and involvement, of residents into quantitative research/analysis.

https://sites.tufts.edu/jamesjennings/files/2020/01/reportsCommunityVoicesFairmoun2019.pdf

https://sites.tufts.edu/jamesjennings/files/2018/06/reportsUnderstandingGentrificationDisplacement2016.pdf

While we study & react to the trees, we forget about the forest: what top-down incentives are public officials & the tax code offering which incentivizes capital to invest in these neighborhoods? To me, the racial or ethnic component — negative impacts notwithstanding — is secondary. This is strictly about business investment & how public officials measure THEIR idea of success. They don’t talk about displacement (negative), they talk about investment (positive).

In my city of San Antonio, where everyone points to these gentrification impacts, no one bothers to examine what the ADOPTED VISION CALLS FOR: it CALLS FOR displacement! Hello? Change the vision if you want to see different impacts & results.

For 40 yrs or so, cities across the country have remained stuck in one gear, abiding by the ubiquitous “urban planning” model, in which civic success is measured in the built environment, i.e. business development, the metro or “area” region, NOT the city.

City civic success is no longer a metric except in rhetorical, symbolic terms. In this discussion I see that we’re still missing the boat.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Gentrification.

Gentrification is a clash between the power of private capital and government policy and the power of people in targeted communities to preserve their homes and heritage.

Anthropology, Sociology, Social Studies, U.S. History, Human Geography

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Gentrification is a demographic and economic shift that displaces established working-class communities and communities of color in favor of wealthier newcomers and real estate development companies. Heavy private investment in target neighborhoods causes price to rise sharply, and amenities enjoyed by the new residents, such as more expensive shopping and dining, drive out businesses that were supported by the established community. The process can leave neighborhoods that generations have called home transformed in just a few years.

Photojournalist John Langmore documented this time of change in the African American community of East Austin in his book Fault Lines. His photographs capture the character of the community between 2006 and 2010, a time of very rapid gentrification. Co-author Wilhelmina Delco expressed the pain of dislocation for the community, not merely as an injustice, but as a broader loss: “I fear we’re losing something of real value to our city, both in terms of a history and for Black people. My plea is simply that all this change not come at such high a cost—that is, that Austin not forget the important contribution East Austin’s Black community made to the city.” 1

Many of the gentrified communities in the United States, and areas where gentrification is in process, developed because of racist housing policies dating back to the 1940s. Housing discrimination based on race was legal in the United States until 1968 and, in practice, it carried on much longer. People of color were often segregated into areas that white people found less desirable. When the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka integrated public schools in 1954, many white Americans moved away from cities and into suburbs that were largely white and excluded people of color. The phenomenon was called “white flight.”

To encourage people to move into suburbs, real estate brokers practiced something called  blockbusting . They encouraged Black families to pay a premium to move into particular urban neighborhoods so that white families would sell their houses at a low price to move out to the suburbs. After this process was complete, the new minority communities were denied the money they needed to invest in improvements to their neighborhoods through a practice called redlining. These factors combined to reduce opportunities in many urban areas. Capital investment shifted away from cities and segregated communities into predominantly white communities. Because public services are funded by taxes, a smaller, less affluent tax base left many communities underserved.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the U.S. government passed the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit, which created an incentive for developers to invest in urban areas that had been all but abandoned by affluent white people. In 2000, the federal government enacted the New Markets Tax Credit, which made tens of billions of dollars in government money available for urban revitalization projects in low-income communities. Urban neighborhoods that had been overlooked by investors became more attractive. The economic benefits to the city often came at the expense of existing residents of these areas, who were displaced.

In the early 2000s, affluent professionals began to reject suburban life for a chance to live in cities, where they could live close to work and enjoy the cultural amenities of a large urban center. Many moved to city neighborhoods that were home to people of color and working-class families.

The trend toward gentrification is not entirely limited to the United States, though the economic and social factors underpinning it are not the same in other counties. For example, both East London and Rome’s Testaccio district were traditionally working-class or minority neighborhoods. Both areas have experienced an influx of wealthier residents and increased real estate development. As India’s economy expanded dramatically in recent decades, the country has experienced rapid urbanization. Urbanization is a phenomenon that resembles gentrification in that less affluent communities are displaced by more affluent residents. The economic benefits of urbanization for developers and governments clash with the needs of villagers who are forced from the land that sustains them to make way for massive new or expanded cities. In the state of Gujarat, a rapidly urbanizing area, people facing the seizure of their agricultural land by the government have organized and protested. But activists see a grim future for the villagers. Persis Ginwalla of the advocacy group Jameen Adhikar Andolan warns, “Industries and urban centres need disposable low-wage workers, and those displaced from their villages will provide just that.” 2

In the United States, local organizers in communities vulnerable to gentrification have had some success in pushing for preservation efforts in their neighborhoods. Increasingly, real estate developers and city leaders have worked together with community organizers to create a shared vision for development projects. This approach is often called “equitable development”—a new experiment in urban planning with yet-unknown results.

Carlton Eley, a senior official of the Environmental Protection Agency and driver of the equitable development concept, says equitable development is an approach to the challenges faced by cities and their citizens that could produce healthy, resilient, thriving communities without displacement. “Obviously there is no one-size-fits-all way to address [gentrification],” Eley says. Equitable development, he explains, is “a way whereby we can try to encourage more parity and better outcomes through the process of changing how we plan and develop communities.” 3

1. John Langmore et al., Fault Lines: Portraits of East Austin (San Antonio: Maverick Books/Trinity University Press, 2019).

2. Kumar, Raksha. “‘Leave Us Alone’: India’s Villagers Rebel against Urbanisation.” The Guardian , February 12, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/12/india-villagers-rebel-urbanisation-gujarat

3. Mock, Brentin. “Urban Planners May Have Finally Found How to Get to Sesame Street.” Grist, February 13, 2015. https://grist.org/cities/urban-planners-may-have-finally-found-how-to-get-to-sesame-street/

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Gentrification: Why is it a Problem?

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Definition, Causes, and Problems

Racial displacement: de-facto segregation, loss of affordable housing, loss of cultural diversity, loss of political influence.

• B.S., Texas A&M University

Gentrification is the process of more affluent people and businesses moving into historically less affluent neighborhoods. While some urban planning professionals say the effects of gentrification are purely beneficial, others argue that it often results in harmful social consequences, such as racial displacement and loss of cultural diversity .

Key Takeaways: What is Gentrification?

• Gentrification is a term used to describe the arrival of more affluent residents in an older urban neighborhood, with a related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the neighborhood’s character and culture.
• The process of gentrification is often blamed for the displacement of poor residents by wealthy newcomers.
• Gentrification has been the source of painful conflict along racial and economic lines in many American cities. 

While there is no universally agreed-upon definition of the term, gentrification, is generally considered to be the process by which traditionally lower-income neighborhoods are transformed—for better or worse—by an influx of higher-income residents and more profitable businesses.

Most scholars point to two interrelated socio-economic causes of gentrification. The first of these, supply and demand, consists of demographic and economic factors that attract higher-income residents to move into lower-income neighborhoods. The second cause, public policy, describes rules and programs designed by urban policymakers to encourage gentrification as a means of achieving “urban renewal” initiatives.

Supply and Demand

The supply-side theory of gentrification is based on the premise that various factors like crime, poverty, and general lack of upkeep will drive the price of inner-city housing down to the point where affluent outsiders find it advantageous to buy it and renovate it or convert it to higher-value uses. An abundance of low-priced homes, coupled with convenient access to jobs and services in the central city, increasingly make inner-city neighborhoods more desirable than the suburbs to people who are more financially able to convert inner-city housing to higher-priced rental property or single-family homes.

Demographics have shown that young, wealthy, childless people are increasingly drawn to gentrifying inner-city neighborhoods. Social scientists have two theories for this cultural shift. In search of more leisure time, young, affluent workers are increasingly locating in central cities near their jobs. The blue-collar manufacturing jobs that left the central cities during the 1960s have been replaced by jobs in financial and high-tech service centers. Since these are typically high-paying white-collar jobs, neighborhoods closer to the inner-city attract affluent people looking for shorter commutes and the lower home prices found in aging neighborhoods.

Secondly, gentrification is driven by a shift in cultural attitudes and preferences. Social scientists suggest that the growing demand for central city housing is partially the result of a rise in anti-suburban attitudes. Many wealthy people now prefer the intrinsic “charm” and “character” of older homes and enjoy spending their leisure time—and money—restoring them.

As older homes are restored, the overall character of the neighborhood improves, and more retail businesses open to serve the growing number of new residents.

Government Policy Factors

Demographics and the housing market factors alone are rarely enough to trigger and maintain widespread gentrification. Local government policies that offer incentives to affluent people to buy and improve older homes in lower-income neighborhoods are equally important. For example, policies that offer tax breaks for historic preservation, or environmental improvements encourage gentrification. Similarly, federal programs intended to reduce mortgage loan rates in traditionally “under-served areas” make buying homes in gentrifying neighborhoods more attractive. Finally, federal public housing rehabilitation programs that encourage the replacement of public housing projects with less dense, more income-diverse single-family housing have encouraged gentrification in the neighborhoods once blighted by deteriorating public housing.

While many aspects of gentrification are positive, the process has caused racial and economic conflict in many American cities. The results of gentrification often disproportionately benefit the incoming homebuyers, leaving the original residents economically and culturally deprecated.

Originating in London during the early 1960s, the term gentrification was used to describe the influx of a new “gentry” of wealthy people into low-income neighborhoods. In 2001, for example, a Brookings Institute report defined gentrification as “…the process by which higher-income households displace low-income residents of a neighborhood, changing the essential character of that neighborhood.”

Even more recently, the term is applied negatively to describe examples of “urban renewal” in which wealthy—usually white—new residents are rewarded for “improving” an old deteriorating neighborhood at the expense of lower-income residents—typically people of color—who are driven out by soaring rents and the changing economic and social characteristics of the neighborhood.

Two forms of residential racial displacement are observed most often. Direct displacement happens when the effect of gentrification leaves current residents unable to pay increasing housing costs or when residents are driven out by government actions like forced sale by eminent domain to make way for new, higher-value development. Some existing housing may also become uninhabitable as the owners stop maintaining it while waiting for the best time to sell it for redevelopment.  

Indirect residential racial displacement occurs when older housing units being vacated by low-income residents cannot be afforded by other low-income individuals. Indirect displacement can also occur due to government actions, such as discriminatory “exclusionary” zoning laws that ban low-income residential development.

Residential racial displacement resulting from gentrification is often considered a form of de-facto segregation , or the separation of groups of people caused by circumstances rather than by law, such as the Jim Crow laws enacted to maintain racial segregation in the American South during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era .

The lack of affordable housing, long a problem in the United States, is made even worse by the effects of gentrification. According to a 2018 report from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, nearly one in three American households spend more than 30% of their income on housing, with some ten million households spending more than 50% of their income on housing costs.

As part of the gentrification process, older affordable single-family housing is either improved by the incoming residents or replaced by high rent apartment projects. Other aspects of gentrification, such as government imposed minimum lot and home sizes and zoning laws banning apartments also reduce the pool of available affordable housing.

For urban planners, affordable housing is not only hard to create, but it is also hard to preserve. Often hoping to encourage gentrification, local governments sometimes allow subsidies and other incentives for affordable housing construction to expire. Once they expire, owners are free to convert their affordable housing units to more expensive market-rate housing. On a positive note, many cities are now requiring developers to build a specified percentage of affordable housing units along with their market-rate units.

Often a byproduct of racial displacement, cultural displacement occurs gradually as the departure of long-time residents changes the social character of the gentrifying neighborhood. As old neighborhood landmarks such as historically black churches close, the neighborhood loses its history and its remaining long-time residents lose their sense of belonging and inclusion. As shops and services increasingly cater to the needs and traits of new residents, remaining long-time residents often feel like they have been dislocated despite still living in the neighborhood. 

As the original lower-income population is replaced by upper- and middle-income residents, the political power structure of the gentrifying neighborhood can also change. The new local leaders begin to ignore the needs of the remaining long-time residents. As the long-time residents sense their political influence evaporating, they further withdraw from public participation and become more likely to physically leave the neighborhood.

While gentrification occurs in towns and cities across the United States, perhaps the starkest examples of how its effects can be a “problem” can be seen in Washington, D.C., and the California Bay Area.

Washington, D.C. 

For decades, many Black Americans affectionately referred to Washington, D.C. as “Chocolate City” because the city’s population was predominantly African American. However, U.S. Census data shows that the city’s Black residents dropped from 71% of the city’s population to just 48% between 1970 and 2015, while the white population increased by 25% during the same period. More than 20,000 Black residents were displaced from 2000 to 2013, as Washington underwent America’s highest rate of gentrification.

Of the Black residents that have remained, 23%, nearly 1 in 4 live below the property line today. By comparison, only 3% of Washington’s white residents live in poverty—the lowest white poverty rate in the nation. Meanwhile, homeownership and the number of available affordable rental units for long-time Washington residents continue to decrease.

California Bay Area

In the Bay Area of California—the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose—the rapid replacement of old blue-collar industries and jobs with technology, medical, and financial services firms has largely displaced the pre-existing residents. As gentrification progressed, housing costs and land values soared. To maximize their profits, developers built ever more units on ever less property to the point that the Bay Area is now the second densest urban area in America after Los Angeles.

Due to gentrification, skyrocketing housing costs in the Bay Area have driven many people of color, the elderly, and people with disabilities from their homes. From 2010 to 2014, the number of area households with annual incomes of $100,000 or more grew by 17%, while households making less decreased by 3%.

A large majority of the area’s new wealthy, well-paid residents are white, while those being displaced are people of color who have less income to spend on housing. As a result, “affordable housing” has become virtually non-existent in the San Francisco-Oakland area. The average rent for a one-bedroom, 750-square-foot apartment in San Francisco is now almost $3,000 per month, while the median price of a single-family home has topped $1.3 million, according to Zillow. 

Tied directly to the soaring cost of housing, another consequence of Bay Area gentrification has been a sharp increase in the number of evictions in San Francisco. Increasing steadily since 2009, evictions in San Francisco peaked between 2014 to 2015 when more than 2,000 notices were issued—a 54.7% increase over the previous five years.

• Lees, Loretta. “The Gentrification Reader.” Routledge, April 15, 2010, ISBN-10: 0415548403.
• Zuk, Miriam. “Gentrification, Displacement, and the Role of Public Investment.” Urban Planning Literature , 2017, https://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/default/files/images/zuk_et_all_2017.pdf.
• Richards, Kathleen. “The Forces Driving Gentrification in Oakland.” East Bay Express , September 19, 2018, https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-forces-driving-gentrification-in-oakland/Content?oid=20312733.
• Kennedy, Maureen and Leonard, Paul. “Dealing with Neighborhood Change: A Primer on Gentrification and Policy Choices.” Brookings Institute , 2001, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/gentrification.pdf.
• Zukin, Sharon. “The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.” Oxford University Press, May 13, 2011, ISBN-10: 0199794464.
• Herber, Chris. “Measuring Housing Affordability: Assessing the 30-Percent of Income Standard.” Joint Centers for Housing Studies , September 2018, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research-areas/working-papers/measuring-housing-affordability-assessing-30-percent-income-standard.
• Rusk, David. “Goodbye to Chocolate City,” D.C. Policy Center , July 20, 2017, https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/goodbye-to-chocolate-city/. 
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• v.97(1); 2020 Feb

Gentrification, Neighborhood Change, and Population Health: a Systematic Review

Alina s. schnake-mahl.

1 Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA USA

Jaquelyn L. Jahn

S.v. subramanian.

2 Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA USA

Mary C. Waters

3 Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA

Mariana Arcaya

4 Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA

Despite a proliferation of research on neighborhood effects on health, how neighborhood economic development, in the form of gentrification, affects health and well-being in the USA is poorly understood, and no systematic assessment of the potential health impacts has been conducted. Further, we know little about whether health impacts differ for residents of neighborhoods undergoing gentrification versus urban development, or other forms of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent. We followed current guidelines for systematic reviews and present data on the study characteristics of the 22 empirical articles that met our inclusion criteria and were published on associations between gentrification, and similar but differently termed processes (e.g., urban regeneration, urban development, neighborhood upgrading), and health published between 2000 and 2018. Our results show that impacts on health vary by outcome assessed, exposure measurement, the larger context-specific determinants of neighborhood change, and analysis decisions including which reference and treatment groups to examine. Studies of the health impacts of gentrification, urban development, and urban regeneration describe similar processes, and synthesis and comparison of their results helps bridge differing theoretical approaches to this emerging research. Our article helps to inform the debate on the impacts of gentrification and urban development for health and suggests that these neighborhood change processes likely have both detrimental and beneficial effects on health. Given the influence of place on health and the trend of increasing gentrification and urban development in many American cities, we discuss how future research can approach understanding and researching the impacts of these processes for population health.

Introduction

Economically deprived neighborhoods are associated with elevated rates of disease risk [ 1 ] and higher rates of health challenges at the neighborhood and individual level [ 2 , 3 ], as measured by outcomes including preterm birth [ 4 ], cardiovascular disease [ 5 ], and premature mortality [ 6 ]. A body of literature shows associations between underlying social and area-level factors and area-level health inequities [ 7 , 8 ], and finds that neighborhood conditions—and in particular racial residential segregation—are implicated in creating patterns of inequity across a multitude of social outcomes [ 9 ] and help to explain racial disparities in health outcomes between neighborhoods [ 10 ]. One understudied, but potentially relevant determinant of neighborhood-level health disparities, is gentrification.

The term gentrification was initially coined in the 1960s to describe the entrance of an urban “gentry” to, and subsequent transformation of, working-class areas of London [ 11 ]. Since then, the definition of gentrification, as well as its causes and consequences, has been widely debated among academics, activists, and the public [ 12 – 15 ]. We employ Smith’s [ 16 ] definition of gentrification: “the process by which central urban neighborhoods that have undergone disinvestments and economic decline experience a reversal, reinvestment, and the in-migration of a well-off middle- and upper-middle-class population.” Increases in housing prices and amenities, and distinct shifts in the demographic, residential, social, cultural, and political context of a neighborhood often accompany the entrance of higher socioeconomic status (SES) population [ 17 ]. These larger cultural and contextual shifts distinguish gentrification from other forms of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent such as redevelopment or public reinvestment, though these types of changes may catalyze gentrification. Despite the debates on gentrification, there is general agreement that gentrification has become more prevalent in the past two decades [ 18 ].

Gentrification has attracted academics’ and the public’s attention since the 1970s, with scholars and activists arguing for the importance of gentrification in shifting the economic trajectories and demographics of urban neighborhoods [ 19 , 20 ]. In the 1970s to 1980s, after decades of population decline and socioeconomic disinvestment, many urban, previously low-income neighborhoods began to experience reversals in SES, catalyzing a wave of research on the causes and consequences of gentrification [ 21 ]. These early patterns of “urban renewal” or “revitalization” were characterized by the redevelopment of dilapidated housing in a limited number of often predominantly white central city neighborhoods [ 22 ]. In contrast to previous decades, twenty-first-century gentrification has become faster and more widespread, creating more extreme neighborhood change in a greater number of neighborhoods [ 23 – 25 ] and impacting many low-income communities of color. The gentrification-related changes in the past two decades include the following: accelerated compositional shifts towards higher SES residents [ 25 – 27 ]; increases in the white, young college-educated population; and expansion of gentrification processes into historically Black neighborhoods [ 28 ]. By 2010, more than half of all large US cities had at least one gentrifying neighborhood [ 23 ]. Despite the increases in the SES of some urban neighborhoods, historical patterns of neighborhood disadvantage continue, with the average downtown neighborhood continuing to have lower SES than the metro area as a whole [ 27 ].

Gentrification increases are one trend in a recent process of US metropolitan reorganization. In the past two decades, higher-income populations have moved back to cities, more often to historically low-income communities of color than in previous decades, and less economically advantaged populations have moved or are being pushed out to suburbs [ 29 ]. These changes have begun to invert the geographic patterns of residential segregation that predominated since World War II [ 18 , 30 ]. Due to systematic housing discrimination and racist policies that limited home purchasing options for non-white populations, many US metropolitan areas racially isolate low-income urban neighborhoods in central cities and largely prohibited non-whites from higher-income suburbs [ 31 ]. However, since 2000, these patterns have degraded, so much so that by 2014, three million more low-income individuals lived in the suburbs than in urban areas [ 32 ], and patterns of concentrated poverty experienced by communities of color in cities have started to replicate in the suburbs [ 29 ], putting some suburbs at risk of subsequent gentrification. While recent gentrification and increasing suburban poverty have begun reorganizing geographic distributions of neighborhood and metropolitan area inequity, the health implications of these changes have been understudied. In this article, we explicitly draw on ecosocial theory [ 33 ] to situate gentrification in its historical context, as a recent manifestation of multi-generational patterns of residential segregation and economic divestment [ 17 ], and to frame the potential relationships between gentrification and health.

The increased rates and scale of gentrification and other neighborhood change processes—such as urban development and redevelopment, revitalization, and neighborhood renewal—have provoked renewed interest in processes that shift neighborhoods’ demographic characteristics over time. Researchers in sociology, economics, and urban planning have characterized causes and trends of gentrification. However, work on consequences has been largely limited to debates on displacement [ 14 , 34 – 36 ], crime [ 37 – 39 ], and a small number of studies on economic impacts [ 40 – 43 ]. Academic studies of gentrification and urban development, media sources [ 44 ], and activists from affected communities [ 45 , 46 ] suggest that gentrification impacts health. But, there is limited empirical literature on how gentrification affects population health, health behaviors, or access to health care in the USA. To our knowledge, there have been no systematic efforts to evaluate and summarize the existing literature on health and gentrification, or on alternatively termed but similar processes of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent.

The term gentrification often has a negative and politically loaded connotation in both colloquial and, at times, academic contexts. Frontline community-based organizations, reporters, and impacted communities have described gentrification as a “profit-driven racial and class reconfiguration” [ 45 ], or a process of colonialization [ 47 ]. Such definitions explicitly highlight the potential resulting economic and cultural exclusion for working-class communities of color. Despite generally more neutral definitions in academia, we hypothesized that because of the everyday negative usage, some authors avoid the term gentrification, even when measuring forces of neighborhood change that could be defined as gentrification by other academics. We, therefore, expand the search terms in this review to include similar processes of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent not explicitly named gentrification. Further, gentrification is an ambiguous term . Even when expressly used, gentrification includes a range of processes and consequences [ 48 ]. We explore whether these multiple processes should be grouped into a single concept of gentrification.

Researchers have hypothesized both beneficial and detrimental health consequences of gentrification, particularly for low-income populations and communities of color [ 49 – 52 ]. For low-income populations able to stay in gentrifying neighborhoods, health benefits may accrue from poverty de-concentration, reduced segregation, enhanced safety, and improved access to resources, amenities (e.g., public parks), and economic opportunities [ 53 ]. The vast body of literature examining the adverse health effects of exposure to concentrated poverty and residential segregation suggests that reductions in these neighborhood exposures may benefit health [ 9 , 54 ]. However, evidence on either the economic risks and benefits of income mixing [ 55 , 56 ] or substantive social network overlap across racial groups within recently integrated neighborhoods is limited [ 56 , 57 ], and debate remains about the direction of the relationship between gentrification and crime [ 13 , 37 , 39 ].

Conversely, neighborhood change processes can create neighborhoods of extreme income inequality [ 58 ] and exacerbate income polarization [ 56 ]; break down social cohesion and organizations [ 59 , 60 ]; and displace culture, businesses, and political power [ 61 , 62 ], all of which can negatively impact health, particularly for low-income populations [ 63 ]. As housing prices increase in gentrifying neighborhoods [ 64 ], some low-income families may be involuntarily displaced [ 51 ], and landlords operating in gentrifying neighborhoods may evict residents by clearing buildings or engaging in various tactics to push poor residents out in favor of higher-income residents [ 65 , 66 ]. Both voluntary and involuntary displacement can catalyze a cascade of health consequences [ 67 ]. Displaced households may experience increasing financial strains because of relocation expenses; may lose access to neighborhood resources, schools, or jobs; experience disruption of protective social connections, resiliency strategies, and connections to place present in their former neighborhoods [ 59 , 68 ]; and be exposed to discrimination and social marginalization at higher levels than in previous neighborhoods [ 68 , 69 ]. Materialist and psychosocial stressors of the nature described above can elevate the risk of a variety of adverse health outcomes and create psychological burdens for families [ 59 , 70 ]. Once displaced, limited availability of affordable housing may force low-income households to move to substandard units or become unstably housed, which can expose residents to a range of health risks [ 71 , 72 ].

For low-income populations that remain in gentrifying neighborhoods, observing neighbors’, family, or friends’ displacement and anticipation of one’s possible dispossession may present psychosocial burdens [ 73 ], which act as risk factors for a range of adverse health outcomes [ 74 ]. Additionally, increased housing prices reduce available income for medication, health care, transportation, healthy food, and leisure activities [ 75 ] and can impact households’ abilities to achieve health. The existing evidence suggests that gentrification likely impacts population health, but more research is needed to understand the causal mechanisms at play, subpopulation effects, and the full range of potential implications for population health.

We present an original systematic review of empirical research on gentrification and health in the USA. We also examine the literature on urban development and other forms of socioeconomic ascent to ensure inclusion of studies that apply different terminology, but examine substantively comparable neighborhood change processes. We specifically focus on health impacts for low-income populations living in neighborhoods that undergo socioeconomic ascent. Our analysis can aid in better understanding of how these neighborhood socioeconomic and cultural changes impact equity, specifically disparities in health and health care access.

Literature Search

We conducted our systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [ 76 ].

Search Strategy

To identify empirical studies that examine associations between gentrification, and other differently termed but similar neighborhood change processes, and health outcomes published between January 1, 2000, and March 31, 2018, we performed a literature review in five electronic databases: Pubmed, Sociological Abstracts, Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, and EconLit. These databases index journals from each of the major fields that have produced articles on neighborhood effects research. We limited the time range to post 2000 because twenty-first-century gentrification differed substantively from gentrification in previous decades [ 23 – 25 ].

We compiled a list of exposure terms, identified by a review of articles on gentrification and health found in Pub Med, related Mesh terms, and review by topic experts. The terms included gentrification, as well as various processes of socioeconomic ascent including community development/revitalization, urban renewal, and neighborhood change. We expanded our search beyond gentrification because authors use multiple terms to describe processes of neighborhood change and SES ascent. We explicitly did not include words such as eviction or displacement, as they represent possible consequences of gentrification, or mediators in the relationship between gentrification and health. Search terms for health outcomes were based on outcomes previously examined in neighborhood effects research [ 77 ]. Finally, we included geographic search terms to identify studies at the neighborhood or area level.

We combined geographic and exposure terms with the Boolean operator “AND,” then combined these with the health outcome/behavior terms, again using the Boolean operator “AND” (see Appendix Fig ​ Fig2 2 Table ​ Table4 4 for an example of MESH search terms). We searched for our terms within title and abstracts in all databases, and if available by the database, additionally searched MESH terms and keywords related to health outcomes and various terms for neighborhood change processes.

Example search terms

Search terms according to group

We also conducted a “snowball search” examining the reference lists of included articles and additionally searched the grey literature on Google. For our Google search, we used search terms combining the exposure and outcome terms from Appendix Table ​ Table4, 4 , with the name of large cities (e.g., New York, Chicago, San Francisco). Though the search identified relevant reports, none included quantitative estimates of the relationship between gentrification and health. We, therefore, exclude the details of this search strategy. We did not perform a formal meta-analysis on included studies because of the diversity of outcomes assessed in the various included articles (Appendix Fig. ​ Fig.2 2 ).

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

To be included, studies had to conduct primary analysis on the empirical relationship(s) between gentrification or similar processes and health outcomes, assessed at either the individual or neighborhood levels. We limited our search to English-language articles with a US study population. This was because the context, drivers, and thus implications of gentrification and neighborhood change in other countries differ substantially from the USA. The historical racist actions and continued legacy of residential racial segregation in the USA created unique neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, and consequential opportunity for reinvestment in previously disinvested communities [ 31 ]. Therefore, patterns of neighborhood inequity and gentrification described in the included articles are likely to be unique to the USA.

During the full-text assessment, we excluded studies on general crime as an outcome but included studies that assessed homicide or violent crime specifically, as general crime is not a health outcome. Additionally, we excluded articles based on exposure definitions; this included articles that evaluated stagnant neighborhood poverty and increasing neighborhood poverty; articles that did not identify the direction of neighborhood socioeconomic change; or studies in which participants moved, but neighborhoods did not undergo change, because they did not meet our definition of gentrification and related neighborhood processes. Finally, we also excluded articles in which there was no quantitative assessment between the exposure and health outcome.

Study Selection and Data Extraction

Once all identified bibliographic records from the electronic databases were compiled, titles and abstracts were reviewed by ASM and JJ using the above eligibility criteria, and only studies that met inclusion were added to the database. The same authors then reviewed and cross-checked the abstract and full articles to verify the inclusion criteria. This process was then repeated by ASM, and any disagreement on inclusion was resolved through discussion. A second full-article review was then conducted by both authors during the data extraction process, and additional articles were excluded. To quantitatively assess how gentrification affects health, only data from empirical studies were extracted and entered into a database (see Appendix Table ​ Table5 5 ).

Summary of included studies

To understand how gentrification has been conceptualized and operationalized, we recorded how the exposure was named and measured, and the description of the examined construct. Additionally, we report the main results and findings, and direction of results (positive, negative, no effect evident), as related to association or effects of the exposure and health. Table ​ Table1 1 also displays the author name(s), title, year, hypothesized effect and direction, and effect estimate and direction. Though not shown in Table ​ Table1, 1 , we also extracted information on discipline of publishing journal, explicit mention of guiding theory/framework and theory/framework name, stated article purpose, neighborhood definition, hypothesized connections between gentrification and health, dataset used, years studied and study location, study design, covariates assessed, and mediators and moderators considered. We additionally assessed if studies took a historical perspective on the process of gentrification by examining the history of community development policy or disinvestment in that area, if race/ethnicity was explicitly mentioned or operationalized in the definitions of the exposure, and whether the study required that neighborhoods were low-income or disinvested in the base year of the study period. These three topics are major areas of controversy in the gentrification literature, and therefore we sought to understand how the included studies considered these questions.

Characteristics of 22 empirical quantitative studies of neighborhood change and health

a One study included both a longitudinal and cross-sectional study design

b One study included both a national and LA-specific analysis

The five-database search yielded 9879 articles. After removing duplicates, 9108 articles remained. The majority of these articles (8603) were excluded because they did not study a gentrification-relevant exposure, and an additional 190 articles did not examine US populations. We included 100 articles in our first full-text review but excluded an additional 80 publications during the data extraction phase, again primarily because they did not examine a gentrification-relevant exposure, leaving 20 articles that met inclusion criteria. We included an additional two articles from the snowball search strategy, for a total of 22 included articles (see Fig. ​ Fig.1, 1 , study selection flow chart).

Flowchart for study selection

Appendix Table ​ Table5 5 shows the author and publication year, primary exposure name, exposure definition, hypothesized effect and direction of the effect, and the resulting estimated effect and direction of the effect of the 22 included studies.

In Table ​ Table1, 1 , we summarize the publication year of the included articles, study population geographic location, exposure definition, and outcome(s). Only one article was published before 2005, which used data from the 1980s and 1990s. Of the remaining articles, eight (36%) were published between 2005 and 2009, six (27%) between 2010 and 2014, and the seven (32%) between 2015 and 2018. Nearly a third of articles examined East Coast cities (New York and Philadelphia specifically); and three examined Chicago and St. Louis.

Exposures and Outcomes

More than a quarter (eight) of the articles examined homicide, violence, safety, or mortality as a primary outcome. Nine articles (40%) assessed birth outcomes, health behaviors, and chronic diseases, and only two studies examined mental health (depressive symptoms).

Although all included articles measured some type of neighborhood change related to socioeconomic gain, the exposure was labeled differently by various researchers. Nine (> 40%) of the included articles named their exposure gentrification, and an additional five (22%) referred to their exposure as community change, neighborhood change, or neighborhood trajectory. Though the terminology differed, 13 out of 14 articles that examined gentrification or neighborhood/community change defined the exposure as a process of neighborhood change that included a shift towards higher socioeconomic status (see Appendix Table ​ Table5 5 for exposure definitions); the Morenoff et al. (2007) defined gentrification as “a residentially mobile population consisting of young adults and few children under the age of 18.” English et al. measured their exposure with census variables also commonly considered to indicate gentrification, but termed their exposure neighborhood instability. Among the remaining nine articles, four (18%) called their exposure urban/community development or revitalization/improvement, two (9%) neighborhood context or neighborhood position, and the remaining two termed their exposure neighborhood renovation or instability.

Seven articles (33%) lacked a priori hypothesis about the direction of the relationship between the exposure and health outcome of interest (see Appendix Table ​ Table5). 5 ). Another eight articles (33%) hypothesized a protective relationship, and five articles (~ 25%) included both protective and detrimental hypothesis. Three articles (14%) [ 78 – 80 ] hypothesized that the relationship between the exposure and the outcome would be detrimental to the health of individuals exposed.

Almost 90% of studies (19 articles) reported a significant effect of neighborhood SES ascent on health when including subgroup effects. Of these, one-third (eight) of the included articles reported significant health improvements associated with the exposure among the full study population, another third (eight articles) found both significant protective and detrimental effects depending on the subgroup assessed, and 20% (four articles) found significant harmful main effects, and the remainder (two articles) reported no significant main or subgroup effects.

Of the nine papers that named their exposure of interest gentrification, six of nine articles (67%) found a significant overall association (positive or negative) between gentrification on health, and all found significant associations between gentrification and health for at least one subgroup. For example, using a cross-sectional dataset, Gibbons found only a marginally significant effect ( p < 0.10) for the overall association between gentrification and poor self-rated health, but significantly higher odds for Blacks compared to whites. Of note, this was the only study that included a self-reported outcome. Lim et al. (2017) found that for low-income groups remaining in gentrifying neighborhoods, residents experienced significantly higher rates of emergency department (ED) utilization, lower rates of hospitalizations, and no significant effect on mental health-related visits, in comparison to low-income residents in non-gentrifying neighborhoods [ 80 ]. The Lee article, which used a methodologically rigorous, quasi-experimental study design, found no significant effect of gentrification in low-income neighborhoods, and an increase in assaults in moderate-income neighborhoods undergoing gentrification.

There were additional contrasting results in terms of the protective or detrimental effects of gentrification on health. Four of the studies (44%) on gentrification found protective effects, and all but one of those articles examined violence. One study (11%) found only harmful associations, and four (44%) found both protective and detrimental associations. Of these mixed-result studies, the authors offered differing explanations for their findings: one found contrasting effects by outcome assessed—emergency department versus hospital admission [ 80 ]; another by exposure measurement—density of coffee shops versus administrative economic data [ 81 ]; another by time period—1990s versus 2000s [ 82 ]; another by the economic status of the neighborhood—low versus moderate income; and the two found subgroup effects depending on participant racial category [ 83 ], and an interaction between participant race and neighborhood racial composition [ 84 ].

Studies on violence and crime (six of the nine articles) produced conflicting results, with some documenting a decrease [ 37 , 39 , 81 , 85 ] and others an increase in violence associated with gentrification [ 38 , 82 ]. Though, notably, Williams found that between 2000 and 2009, gentrification was associated with 52 (SE 13.56, p < 0.01) additional violent crimes than non-gentrifying areas, and Lee found that in moderate-income neighborhoods, each additional gentrifying household per 1000 led to annual average of 2.2 (SE 1.09, p < 0.05) more assaults per 1000. In addition to conducting primary analysis, Kreager et al. (2011) summarized earlier work, and the findings suggest a curvilinear relationship between gentrification and crime/violence over time, suggesting that early-stage gentrification—during the 1970s and 1980s—was associated with increases in crime, while crime rates declined during the 1990s. We caution direct comparison of the articles on violence, as they focus on different cities and periods, and include various measures of gentrification, and all but one used observational data, so it cannot show that gentrification caused changes in violence.

Study Design and Analysis Methods

Regarding study design, the vast majority of articles (90%) were observational, and only two (9%) articles used quasi-experimental designs, one instrumental variable [ 38 ], and one longitudinal pre-post with a control group [ 86 ] (see Table ​ Table2). 2 ). Of those 20 observational articles, one article used both a longitudinal and cross-sectional study design [ 88 ], another eight (36%) used only a longitudinal cohort design, and the remaining 11 (55%) employed a cross-sectional or repeated cross-sectional design. Of the nine studies that examined gentrification, one (11%) used a quasi-experimental design, four (44%) used longitudinal designs, and four other (44%) studies used cross-sectional or repeated cross-sectional designs. The single gentrification study using a quasi-experimental design by Lee (2010) exploited the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles as an instrument to control for bias due to neighborhood selection and found that in the short-term gentrification increased crime. Overall, however, studies using designs with a lower risk of bias (quasi-experimental, longitudinal) did not appear to differ concerning the likelihood of reporting either a positive or negative relationship between the assessed exposure and health.

Study design and exposure measurement in studies of neighborhood change and health ( N = 22)

a One study used both a cross-sectional and longitudinal study design

b Only longitudinal studies that included a control group were considered quasi-experimental

Eight studies (36%) used a multilevel modeling approach, most nesting individuals within neighborhoods or communities, and another six studies used fixed-effects approach, though there was no difference in the direction or likelihood of significance for multilevel models versus fixed-effects approaches. The articles included various covariates that might bias the impact of the exposure on health outcomes. Common individual-level covariates included age, sex or gender, race/ethnicity, measures of socioeconomic status (income, education, wealth), a housing tenure-related measure, insurance status, marital status, and outcome at baseline. Common neighborhood-level measures included population count, neighborhood racial composition, percent foreign-born/immigrant population, and indices of concentrated disadvantage.

Nearly a quarter (5) of the included studies augmented census data with measures intended to capture the subtle cultural process of neighborhood change not evident in census data. Half of all studies (11) relied on administrative data to operationalize the exposure, primarily data derived from either the decennial census or American Community Survey (ACS); and another five (23%) studies employed various types of observational data, such as the count of coffee shops or analysis of property appraisals. Six studies (27%) used a longitudinal or repeated cross-sectional study design and measured the pre-post design as the exposure (e.g., before and after a development project).

Nearly half (10) of the studies tested whether the magnitude of the effect varied depending on a third variable, and six of those ten examined whether the magnitude or direction of the effect differed depending on respondents’ race/ethnicity. Though Williams and Rabito found no race-specific interaction effects, the four remaining studies found support for differential effects either by individual race/ethnicity or neighborhood racial compositions. The four studies generally found either larger benefits for whites or white neighborhoods, or worse outcomes for non-white populations than white populations [ 83 , 84 , 87 , 88 ]. Less than a quarter (5) of all included articles explicitely mentioned or operationalized race in their definitions of the exposure.

A major debate in the literature is whether a neighborhood must be poor or low-income to be eligible for reinvestment and considered eligible to gentrify or revitalize. Less than half (10) of the included studies required such a condition in the base year of analysis. Studies operationalized “eligible for reinvestment” in different ways: as those neighborhoods with below average median family income for the city [ 39 , 84 ], neighborhoods where ≥ 50% of the residents live below 1.5 times the federal poverty level [ 15 , 62 , 89 ]; neighborhoods with higher than average poverty level [ 85 ]; or defined by a principal component analysis of multiple neighborhood-level characteristics [ 80 ]. Six articles [ 37 , 81 , 83 , 84 , 90 ] specifically mentioned displacement of lower-income households as part of the exposure definition, and all but one [ 90 ] of those articles termed their exposure gentrification.

Article Framing

Almost 60% (13) of the included studies explicitly mentioned or described a framing theory in the article text (Table ​ (Table3). 3 ). Most of those theories either fell into the category of ecological theories (social-ecological, ecological dissimilarity, human ecology, social disorganization, and relative deprivation) or social capital theories (social disorganization and collective efficacy). No included studies explicitly employed a participatory framework or approach.

Theory and historical framing, by direction of hypothesis, in studies of neighborhood change and health ( N = 22)

a Studies were defined as ahistorical if they did NOT include any description of the history of the exposure measure or history of the study neighborhoods

We also examined if the presence of theory or historical assessment suggested the directionality of the hypothesized relationship between the exposure and outcome. No clear relationships emerged, though studies including a historical or theoretical perspective were slightly more likely to hypothesize a protective directionality, and no studies that included a historical perspective also assumed a detrimental impact. Eight (36%) studies hypothesized a protective effect, three (14%) hypothesized detrimental effects, seven (32%) lacked an a priori hypothesis, and four (18%) hypothesized that there would be both protective and detrimental impacts. Nearly one-third of studies that lacked a historical perspective of the exposure or neighborhood also lacked an a priori hypothesis. Among articles published in public health journals, 50% (five of ten articles) were both atheoretical and ahistorical, and the remaining five were either ahistorical or atheoretical; no studies published in public health journals explicitly addressed both theory and history.

This review provides a summary of the last two decades of quantitative research on the relationships between health and gentrification, urban development, and other forms of socioeconomic ascent. Our results reveal limited literature on how neighborhood socioeconomic ascent impacts health, finding only 22 studies that met the inclusion criteria. While more research is needed, studies on gentrification, and related neighborhood SES ascent processes, and health represent a promising area of study about how changing places impact health. Of the limited studies available, the majority found evidence of significant associations between gentrification and other measures of socioeconomic ascent and health, though the direction of the assessed relationships was not consistent. Nine studies specifically examined gentrification, and of those, five found a protective effect of gentrification on health, though four of the five assessed the impact of gentrification on a measure of violence. The other four studies found either detrimental or both detrimental and protective impacts of gentrification on health.

Debates on gentrification and other neighborhood change processes are often framed as questions about whether such processes are uniformly harmful or protective [ 15 ]. Our results cannot provide definite conclusions to this question, with respect to health, and instead suggest that gentrification, neighborhood change, and urban development appear to both detrimentally and beneficially associate with health. In the following paragraphs, we describe some of the primary reasons the studies appeared to find diverging associations between neighborhood socioeconomic ascent and health. In particular, we discuss differences in contextual determinants of neighborhood change, outcomes and exposure measurement employed, and study design and analysis methods.

First, as suggested by ecosocial theory, underlying political, social, and economic neighborhood differences impact health [ 33 ], as well as the probability that a neighborhood will gentrify. Contextual differences include the preexisting spatial and racial inequity in cities, policy efforts underway, the level of affordable housing and community organizing present, speed at which change processes occur, and whether the cause of change is exogenous [ 91 ]. In future studies, such contextual factors should be considered as potential confounders or effect modifiers of the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic ascent and health, when testing the relationship across multiple neighborhoods. In particular, racial residential segregation plays a foundational role in maintaining and replicating racial and socioeconomic inequity [ 9 , 92 ]. Segregation and intentional disinvestment from, in particular, Black communities [ 93 ], created the conditions that result in over-representation of communities of color as disinvested and low-income, and therefore eligible to gentrify [ 94 ]. As the ecological dissimilarity hypothesis posits, residential segregation creates differential exposures and contexts for majority Black versus majority non-Black neighborhoods, and therefore neighborhood change produces divergent processes and outcomes depending on the prior racial/ethnic composition of the neighborhood and of the gentrifiers [ 95 ].

The theoretical and historical framing of an article can orient authors to the larger contextual factors operating in the places they study, and help authors identify potential effect modifiers, such as levels of segregation, to test for in studies. However, none of the articles in our review, that were published in public health journals, included explicit theoretical and historical framing, and overall, nearly two-thirds of the included studies did not include a historical perspective. The ahistorical studies did not explicitly engage with discussions on how larger political, economic, and cultural powers and processes, and divorced their explication of neighborhood change from the durability of racial segregation. Future research, particularly in public health, will benefit from explicitly engaging in larger discussions on neighborhood inequities, and the propensity for certain neighborhoods to undergo change. The lack of theoretical and historical framing in the public health literature we examined also makes it challenging to distinguish gentrification from other forms of socioeconomic ascent . For example, neighborhood socioeconomic ascent that occurs as a result of public investment or economic development versus ascent due to an influx of new residents. We might operationalize both types of neighborhood change by measuring changes in income, but outcomes for residents are likely to differ. Such differences enforce the importance of clearly describing contextual antecedents and change processes.

We found included articles used a plurality of definitions and measures of gentrification and related exposures, and caution against assuming a uniform relationship between such exposures and health. Epidemiology traditionally requires a well-defined intervention to estimate causal effects. At this time, gentrification research is in a nascent stage of development, so the consistency assumption may not be the primary concern [ 96 ]. However, as research moves forward towards guiding potential interventions on gentrification, the issue of a well-defined intervention should be addressed.

Gentrification is one commonly measured form of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent [ 69 ], and we intentionally included differently named exposures in this review. Even within the studies explicitly terming their exposure gentrification, authors conceptualized and operationalized gentrification in numerous ways. It follows that exposures termed and measuring other forms of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent would likely produce differential outcomes. How a neighborhood changes—for example, the speed, whether internal or external forces catalyze the change, residents’ feelings of ownership of change [ 97 ]—is likely as important for health as change itself. To address the import of change type, we intentionally avoid conducting a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis would require grouping our variously termed and measured exposures together to calculate a pooled effect. Instead, this article is intended to build a foundation for future work to answer the question of how to classify different types of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent as they relate to health outcomes.

Half of all reviewed studies relied on administrative, mostly census, data to operationalize their exposure. Census-based measures allow for small area estimates that approximate neighborhoods and allow for geographically meaningful comparisons across places, but may miss nuanced changes within neighborhoods [ 98 ]. Promising work in sociology uses systematic social observation and Google street view to capture the cultural and developmental aspects of gentrification [ 17 ]. But no authors have yet applied the measure to health studies. Application of measures using systematic social observation, or measures generated using various other forms of data, may help to differentiate gentrification from other types of socioeconomic ascent. Examples include data from the existing administrative data sources such as parcel-based home sales, property characteristics and permits, condominium conversions, tenant complaints, and 311 calls; indices based on social media sources—e.g., yelp Business reviews [ 99 ], user-generated geographic content [ 100 ], surveys of long-term resident perceptions’ of gentrification, or mixed-methods approaches triangulating multiple data sources [ 98 ]. Such work can aid in understanding which types and qualities of gentrification matter for shaping health outcomes as well as the mechanisms by which this occurs. There has also been limited exploration of various gentrification subtypes in the health literature, for example, change induced by gay and lesbian populations [ 101 ], of gay and lesbian neighborhoods [ 102 ], or catalyzed by an influx of neo-bohemian and creative classes [ 103 ]. Extending gentrification work to consider subtypes may help to explain differential impacts across studies.

The literature, both the articles we reviewed on gentrification and health and the larger body of literature on gentrification generally, has failed to arrive at a consensus on definitions or measurement of gentrification and urban development processes [ 104 , 105 ]. And, even those articles using the same term to describe their exposure do not apply consistent definitions for the term employed. For example, there is substantial debate in the literature about how to define and measure gentrification. Five of the articles on gentrification included displacement in their exposure definitions, while other researchers presented displacement as a consequence, rather than component, of gentrification [ 106 ]. Likewise, debates about which neighborhoods are eligible to undergo neighborhood socioeconomic ascent and gentrify [ 20 , 106 , 107 ], and if gentrification is an inherently racialized process [ 95 ] lead to differing decisions about which neighborhoods to include in a study, categorization of thresholds to identify treatment or control neighborhoods, and variables or data used to operationalize the exposure. Of our included articles, almost half (10) required prior disinvestment or neighborhoods to be low income in the base year of the study, and 22% (5) studies included race in their exposure definition. These decisions can impact the significant and direction of results, as well as the interpretation of analysis and recommendations to stifle or encourage gentrification. We add to the definitional debate by identifying that the definition and operationalization of the exposure process also impact the health effects estimated. Rather than advocating for a single definition, we instead suggest researchers present a clear theoretical basis for their definitional and operational choices, so that readers can assess the position from which researchers are approaching their questions [ 108 ].

There did not appear to be a uniform directional relationship between exposures and outcomes across health measures, or even across multiple studies measuring the same outcome. More than a third of the reviewed studies examined violence and crime but found varying directional results. Given the inconsistent relationships that emerged depending on the outcome assessed, studies should consider including a more extensive set of potential health outcomes. For example, only one study included a self-reported health outcome, and none of the reviewed studies on gentrification examined mental health outcomes, though mental health and self-reported health may show rapid changes in the face of neighborhood change. Administrative databases, such as health insurance claims data, show great promise because of their ability to track longitudinal health outcomes and household addresses. For example, a study by Dragan et al. uses Medicaid claims data to compare utilization rates among children in low-income neighborhoods that gentrified to children in low-income neighborhoods that did not gentrify [ 109 ]. Administrative claims data could also be used to test hypotheses about gentrification and housing instability, which can be an enormous psychological and economic stressor for low-income residents and could impact acute cardiovascular events among those with existing cardiovascular comorbidities. In addition, gentrification can increase housing costs and limit low-income people’s resources to cover needed medical expenses such as medications. We would expect these financial stressors to affect asthma emergency department visits (particularly among children), diabetes control, and, in the long-term, incidence of new chronic diseases.

For many of the included studies, aggregate results appeared to mask heterogeneity in the health effects across subpopulations of those exposed. In particular, though only seven studies measured effect modification by race/ethnicity or neighborhood racial composition. We found a suggestive pattern, whereby in several studies, white populations or residents of white neighborhoods appear to benefit from gentrification and Black populations experience adverse health outcomes [ 37 , 83 , 84 ]. For example, Huynh and Gibbons found opposite directional effects in analysis stratified by race but failed to find significant main results, suggesting that subgroup effects masked significant main effects. Articles published after our study have additional associations between gentrification and worse health for Black residents [ 110 , 111 ], but no significant main effects. Together these findings suggest both the need to include tests for differential effects by race/ethnicity in gentrification studies and the potential that gentrification may exacerbate existing racial disparities in health.

Neighborhood change may produce heterogeneous impacts for different residents within changing neighborhoods. As described above, results may differ by race/ethnicity of individuals as well as the composition of neighborhoods. Long-term residents are likely to be most deeply connected with their neighborhoods and therefore most susceptible to disruption of networks via neighborhood change [ 55 , 112 ], but none of the studies we reviewed included length of time in the neighborhood as a control variable. Comparing long-term residents of gentrifying and non-gentrifying previously low-income neighborhoods will help to isolate the impacts of neighborhood SES ascent on health further.

Methodological decisions about exposure and reference groups additionally appeared to impact study results. The included studies considered various control groups, such as residents of high-income and low-income neighborhoods, and we find that more explicit description of the target study population and control group will improve researchers’ ability to assess the effect of these processes on health and disparities in health. For studies of neighborhood gentrification, low-income residents of geographically proximate, continuously low-income neighborhoods may constitute as a meaningful reference group against which to compare low-income residents of gentrifying areas. Residents of continuously low-income neighborhoods experience the likely outcome trajectory in the absence of gentrification, allowing for a less biased estimate of the population average treatment effect.

Neighborhood effects research tends to frame low-income neighborhoods as universally detrimental to health [ 113 , 114 ]. A myopic focus on the damaging impacts of economically deprived neighborhoods overlooks protective health factors that also exist in low-income neighborhoods, before an influx of higher-income individuals, and the potential for neighborhood change to disrupt these resiliency factors. For example, residents living in neighborhoods high in collective efficacy, or mutual trust and willingness to help other community members, have been found to report better overall health than those living in neighborhoods low in collective efficacy, after controlling for a range of individual and neighborhood-level characteristics [ 115 ]. Strong social connections and networks can mediate the effects of structural factors such as poverty and concentrate disadvantage [ 116 ]. Applying an asset-based framing [ 117 ], which suggests consideration of both positive and protective neighborhood factors when examining low-income racially segregated neighborhoods, can help to identify mediating factors that may protect health as neighborhoods change.

Low- and working-class voices are often absent in research on neighborhood change [ 13 , 118 ], but listening to those directly impacted can help develop deeper understandings of neighborhood SES ascent processes, advance epidemiologic research by identifying complex causal processes, and shape policies to better address community needs [ 119 , 120 ]. No included studies applied a Participatory Action Research (PAR), or Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) framing, though these and other forms of participatory epidemiology offer frameworks for inclusion [ 121 – 123 ]. Promising work in this area, such as the Healthy Neighborhood Study (HNS), provides a platform to include residents in the research study, definition of outcomes, and identification of mediators of the relationship between neighborhood development and health [ 97 ]. Other participatory research by the authors identified gentrification and displacement as the second most important neighborhood challenge impacting residents in Central Brooklyn in 2017 [ 46 ] and, research conducted with communities across New York found gentrification was among the top three most commonly identified structural psychosocial stressors [ 74 ]. While community organizing and activism are often pitted as enemies of development and rezoning processes, PAR offers opportunities to bring community members, developers, and policymakers to the same table to create understanding and plans for inclusive development. We can learn lessons about the importance, mechanisms, and consequences involved in gentrification from such projects, and PAR generally.

It is unclear whether low-income populations are benefitting from the spatial realignment associated with gentrification and urban redevelopment, and if poverty is re-concentrating in new areas. The limited research on this topic suggests the latter that low-income residents directly displaced by gentrification or who move out of gentrifying neighborhoods often move to even lower-income neighborhoods [ 17 ] or neighborhoods further from cities’ economic cores. But, on average rates of displacement are not higher in gentrifying than non-gentrifying low-income neighborhoods [ 14 , 15 , 28 , 43 ]. Low-income populations tend to live in poor housing conditions and exit, for both consensual and non-consensual reasons, at high rates in all types of neighborhoods [ 36 , 106 ]. Other research suggests that low-income households are often locked out from moving into gentrifying neighborhoods because of high rental prices, and when low-income households move out of gentrifying neighborhoods they are often replaced by higher-income households, creating much of the turnover observed in gentrifying neighborhoods [ 106 ]. Health consequences, however, are not limited to physical displacement or lockout; the loss of social networks spurred by others’ displacement can increase stress levels and detrimentally impact residents [ 83 ].

In part as a consequence of these changing residential configurations, patterns of economic and racial segregation prevalent in cities are replicating in the suburbs [ 124 ]. Our work indicates that between 2005 and 2015, the suburbs had on average lower rates of uninsurance and barriers to health care, but this advantage relative to urban areas fell over the study period and had disappeared by 2015. Nearly 40% of low-income suburban residents had an unmet care need due to cost in the past year, suggesting that if low-income residents move out of or are displaced to the suburbs, they likely face substantial barriers accessing care [ 125 ]. Further, a small body of literature has begun to examine gentrification in suburban areas [ 126 ]. Broadening of gentrification work outside or urban areas reflects more recent increases in suburban poverty and the reality that suburbs have been home to impoverished communities for decades [ 127 ], despite narratives of suburbs as homogenously affluent. Only one article included in our study examined access to health care, and they found that while ED admissions were slightly higher in gentrifying neighborhoods than a non-gentrifying poor neighborhood, hospitalizations were lower in gentrifying neighborhoods [ 80 ]. Further research on how neighborhood change impacts access to health care can assist health departments and providers, particularly safety-net providers, in understanding how to distribute resources and services to better address care needs.

Limitations

We did not conduct a meta-analysis given the heterogeneity of the study designs, outcomes, data sources, and different ways of measuring gentrification and neighborhood change, and so do not present the range of estimated magnitudes for any outcomes. Additionally, given the limited number of relevant studies, we did not attempt to conduct any significance tests to understand the associations between study features and outcomes. Our results are limited by the time period, search terms, databases and review protocol we employed, and choice of different terms or protocol may have altered the included articles. We are aware of a small number of additional articles that have been published on the topic since the review was completed [ 111 , 128 ] or in journals not indexed in the databases we searched [ 129 ]. However, our terms were broad, and we followed the systematic review with both snowball and structured Google search reviews, to ensure most relevant articles were not overlooked.

We recognize, but intentionally avoid, broader debates on causes of gentrification and debates on new urbanism [ 18 , 130 ]. The literature suggests that a host of both supply and demand factors, as well as geopolitical and historical trends, drive gentrification and urban investment and that these factors are likely location specific in the degree to which they explain gentrification [ 35 ]. Researches have produced numerous works on these subjects, and we find it beyond the scope of this work to engage further in this debate because no studies relate these factors to health outcomes, but acknowledge their importance for understanding the larger implications of processes of divestment, investment, and gentrification. We suggest that future research on the subject consider mediating factors, both the upstream sociopolitical factors affecting the prevalence and intensity of neighborhood change processes, and those factors that mediate the relationship between neighborhood change and health, for example, by examining the level of social support and cohesion, factors that may both confound and mediate the relationship between gentrification and population health. Additionally, a body of literature, produced mostly in Europe, explores how urban renewal and regeneration can contribute to gentrification and other neighborhood change processes, and how in turn these impact health equity [ 131 – 133 ]. We limited the scope of our search to studies directly assessing the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic ascent processes and health, but recent work in systems thinking offer methods of evaluating these dynamic interrelations and identifying the multiple complex causal processes at play in urban environments [ 134 , 135 ].

Critical gaps exist in the literature examining recent changes in the geographic patterning of populations in the USA and implications for health. Documenting and explaining social inequalities in health is a central task of public health and understanding the geography of inequality is a fundamental tenet of population health. Despite the impacts of gentrification and neighborhood socioeconomic ascent on the public health and the health care fields, both fields have primarily remained on the periphery of public debates around the impacts of neighborhood change processes. We need further research to address this gap, particularly study designs that allow for a causal interpretation of effects—experimental, natural, and quasi-experimental longitudinal designs—and follow people across and within neighborhoods, as well as participatory studies that include the voices of impacted communities. We found that differences in study design, analysis methods, exposure definitions, and control groups explained differences in findings. To allow for comparison of studies across cities, outcomes, and time periods, it is imperative that researchers employ consistent reference groups, include theory-driven controls and exposure measures, consider and describe different types of gentrification and neighborhood change processes, test for subgroup effects where average population effects may obscure differential impacts by group, and explicitly document contextual and historical factors that generate understanding of the larger political and social context in which neighborhoods change.

Our review underscores the relevance of considering neighborhood change to accurately determine prevalence and incidence of area-level health outcomes. Recognizing and documenting where the economically disadvantaged and the affluent reside, and how their contexts affect their health, aids in our understanding of the geographic distribution of health and wellness in the population. Overlooking shifting geographic patterns hinders our ability to accurately assess changes in population health, identify causes of ill or good health, and develop interventions and policies to address inequities.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Jackelyn Hwang for her review of the search terms. This research was supported by a grant from the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness Dissertation Award.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Gentrification is a global problem. It's time we found a better solution

Today we begin a new series looking at the impact of gentrification and rising housing costs all over the world – and the ways some cities are trying to tackle this global phenomenon. Share your stories here

• ‘This is just the start’: China’s passion for overseas property

F irst come the artists, then the cranes. As the kamikaze pilots of urban renewal, wherever the creatives go, developers will follow , rents will rise, the artists will move on, and the pre-existing community will be kicked out with them.

Such is the accepted narrative of gentrification, a term first coined more than 50 years ago by the German-born British sociologist Ruth Glass to describe changes she observed in north London – but it is a phenomenon that has been at the heart of how cities evolve for centuries.

Gentrification is a slippery and divisive word, vilified by many for the displacement of the poor , the influx of speculative investors, the proliferation of chain stores, the destruction of neighbourhood authenticity ; praised by others for the improvement in school standards and public safety, the fall in crime rates, and the arrival of bike lanes , street markets and better parks .

Your opinion might depend on which side of the property-owning chasm you are on, and the respective consequences: an uplift in the value of your assets, or an increase in the rent you must pay to stay. In all cases, the winners are the landowners, who profit handsomely from the unearned income of neighbourhood improvement.

For years, gentrification boosters such as Richard Florida have argued it is the surefire formula for urban regeneration, proselytising their magic recipe to rapt mayors around the world. Blighted neighbourhoods could be miraculously transformed by incentivising the arrival of the “creative class” of artists, gay couples and brave bohemians: those frontline pioneers who would take on rundown buildings and seed the pop-up micro-breweries, artisanal bakeries and farmers’ markets that would encourage the more timid middle classes to follow. Houses are done up, community gardens appear, and investors flock to reap the rewards.

The “urban renaissance” of the past two decades, masterminded in the UK by Richard Rogers in the form of New Labour’s urban taskforce, set out to revitalise decaying inner city cores, breathe fresh life into post-industrial “brownfield” land, and make cities happier , healthier, safer places to live and work. Rather than escaping to the suburbs, successful young professionals would be lured back into the city, bringing an upwardly mobile, cappuccino-supping class to activate a whole new generation of urban public spaces.

There have been many upsides. But the consequences of the rate and scale of change, the displacement of poor by rich, the loss of workspace and the hollowing out of neighbourhoods by buy-to-leave investors, is now frightening even the most ardent promoters of trickle-down regeneration.

Brownfield developments have too often resulted in lifeless dormitory blocks: clone-town apartments built without the social infrastructure of the corner shops, doctors’ surgeries, pubs and primary schools needed to make viable places to live. Projects that were planned as mixed-tenure neighbourhoods have seen their “affordable” housing quotas relentlessly squeezed out , thanks to the clever accounting of viability consultants and well-paid planning lawyers .

Starting today, this Guardian Cities series will examine the consequences of gentrification around the world, and interrogate what is being done to tackle it. From Vancouver ’s pioneering gentrification tax to the efforts of a tenants’ cooperative in Brooklyn, from housing evictions in Johannesburg to the impact of Airbnb in Amsterdam , we will hear from groups on both sides of the regeneration machine about the impacts, challenges and tactics being deployed on this ever-shifting battleground.

My own view is that the best solution to mitigate the impact of the almost inevitable tide of urban gentrification is a tax on the value of land, which would capture the value of improvements for the local community, rather than lining the pockets of investors.

This is an idea that has enjoyed the support of economists throughout the ages, from Adam Smith (who said “nothing could be more reasonable”) to Milton Friedman (who called it “the least bad tax”), but it is most closely associated with Henry George, whose 1879 book Progress and Poverty argued that land-value levies should replace all other taxes, leaving labour and capital to flourish freely, thus ending poverty, unemployment, inflation and inequality.

At present, when gentrification increases the value of an area, the windfall is to the landowners. The community group that gets together to revive a street market or establish an urban garden, or the penniless artists who turn a leaky warehouse into a gallery, are indirectly responsible for catalysing the very forces they are usually determined to prevent.

Such amenities increase the “locational value” of properties in the area, attracting buy-to-let investors, land speculators and estate agents who feature these very community assets in their glossy brochures. The arrival of the allotment and the “ makerspace ” puts into motion a sequence of events that will ultimately drive them out: the cast-iron rule of gentrification is that the things that make an area attractive will be displaced or destroyed.

A land value tax shifts this dynamic. Rather than taxing property, it taxes the value of the land itself – determined by its location, not what is built on it. The rise in value that results from neighbourhood improvements is therefore captured and returned to the community, to be reinvested in the area.

Such a tax also penalises those who hoard vacant plots of land with no intention to build, while driving inflated land values down by taking into account the value of future levies that will be applied.

In short, it would mean the next time you see a bearded hipster wheeling his sourdough trolley to the local festival of sustainable street art, you could take solace in the fact that the perceived value he is creating will not be siphoned off by a developer, or lead to an increase in your rent, but ultimately generate more revenue to make your neighbourhood a better place to live.

Are you experiencing or resisting gentrification in your city? Share your stories in the comments below, through our dedicated callout , or on Twitter using #GlobalGentrification.

Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive – but supporting us isn’t. If you value the the Guardian’s coverage of the global housing crisis, please help to fund our journalism by becoming a supporter

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The Pros and Cons of Gentrification

Introduction.

Gentrification “has become shorthand for an urban neighborhood where muggings are down and espresso is roasted,” wrote Times reporter Andrea Elliot . A Salon piece described it as the result of “sweetheart deals” between the public and private sectors “that never pay off for the public.” And don’t even mention the word around Spike Lee .

However one might feel about the topic, most everyone would agree that the process benefits the wealthy more than the poor, and tends to erase socioeconomic diversity. Are there ways to curb its effects?

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Stanford professor’s study finds gentrification disproportionately affects minorities

Disadvantaged residents from predominately Black neighborhoods have fewer options in face of gentrification.

A new study by a Stanford sociologist has determined that the negative effects of gentrification are felt disproportionately by minority communities, whose residents have fewer options of neighborhoods they can move to compared to their white counterparts.

Stanford sociologist Jackelyn Hwang looked at the city of Philadelphia and determined that the negative effects of gentrification are felt disproportionately by minority communities, whose residents have fewer options of neighborhoods they can move to compared to their white counterparts. (Image credit: Getty Images)

“If we look at where people end up if they move, poor residents moving from historically Black gentrifying neighborhoods tend to move to poorer non-gentrifying neighborhoods within the city, while residents moving from other gentrifying neighborhoods tend to move to wealthier neighborhoods in the city and in the suburbs,” said study co-author Jackelyn Hwang , assistant professor of sociology in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences .

Hwang and co-author Lei Ding of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conducted one of the first studies to examine empirically where disadvantaged residents move as a result of gentrification and how a neighborhood’s racial context affects those moves.

Looking at the city of Philadelphia, Hwang and Ding found that financially disadvantaged residents who moved from neighborhoods that were not predominantly Black benefitted from gentrification by moving to more advantaged locations, but those moving from once predominantly Black areas did not. The research is published in the American Journal of Sociology .

“As neighborhoods gentrify, when poor people can no longer remain in their neighborhoods and move, there are fewer affordable neighborhoods,” Hwang said. “Our findings suggest that, for the Black community, there are additional constraints when they move, leading them to move to a shrinking set of affordable yet disadvantaged neighborhoods within the city.”

For the purposes of the study, an area was considered to be gentrifying if it experienced a significant increase, compared to other areas in the same city, either in median gross rent or median home value coupled with an increase in college-educated residents. In Philadelphia, there are many historically Black neighborhoods that have undergone gentrification over the last 20 years.

The issue of how gentrification affects different racial groups is particularly relevant right now in light of the increased instability people are facing due to the pandemic and incidents bringing attention to the unnecessary use of policing against people of color in the United States, Hwang said.

Fewer options

Hwang and Ding analyzed a consumer credit database of more than 50,000 adult residents with financial credit records in Philadelphia.

Recognizing that a primary cause of gentrification-related displacement is increased costs for current residents, the authors looked at individuals with low or missing credit scores who might be more vulnerable to displacement and at the same time might face limitations in housing searches if they did move.

The study found that residents in predominately non-Black gentrifying neighborhoods have a broader set of neighborhoods they moved to, while those from Black gentrifying areas were relegated to less advantaged neighborhoods and faced fewer options. These options included other largely Black neighborhoods or immigrant-populated neighborhoods, exacerbating neighborhood inequality by race and class.

“Gentrification is reconfiguring the urban landscape by shrinking residential options within cities for disadvantaged residents and expanding them for more advantaged residents,” the authors write.

Reasons for this discrepancy in Philadelphia and other major cities, Hwang said, include racially stratified housing markets and discriminatory lending practices that have long disadvantaged Black people.

The researchers found that the patterns exhibited by poorer residents moving out of largely Black gentrifying neighborhoods were similar to those of other disadvantaged residents who moved from non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

“Even if people are moving by choice, white people have more advantage when they go into the housing market,” she said.

Combatting inequities

In order to combat the likelihood of gentrification increasing socioeconomic and racial segregation within cities, the authors note the need for policies like Philadelphia’s recently implemented property tax relief program, which prohibits increases in property taxes for long-time low- and middle-income homeowners.

While the authors consider this a step in the right direction, they also would like to see more cities adopt policies that ensure residential stability for renters. Efforts to address racial discrimination in the housing market and overall racial wealth disparities also require attention, they write.

The authors note that as cities continue to transform, a sustained investment in non-gentrifying neighborhoods is needed to attract racial and socioeconomic diversity. At the same time, policies must be in place that allow disadvantaged residents to stay and that connect them to resources and opportunities.

This greater investment in non-gentrifying neighborhoods would, Hwang and Ding write, “ensure that disadvantaged movers are not limited to neighborhoods with high levels of disadvantage, high crime and low-quality schools.”

The study, titled “Unequal Displacement: Gentrification, Racial Stratification, and Residential Destinations in Philadelphia,” was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health .

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Understanding and fighting gentrification: A revolutionary orientation

by Joe Tache

Photo: "STOP GENTRIFICATION: graffiti in Turin (IT), multi-story car park Porta Palazzo." Source: Wikicommons.

Introduction

Cities across the U.S. are rapidly transforming. “Gentrification-style” luxury developments are replacing neighborhood landmarks and low-income housing. Sky-high rents are pushing poor residents increasingly further from city centers. These trends are symptoms of gentrification, the process by which poor and working-class people are driven out of their communities due to an influx of capitalist investment in their neighborhoods.

Gentrification is not always defined in these terms. Some cite cultural explanations, from the kind and number of amenities (like coffee shops, bike lanes, etc.) developed in an urban neighborhood to changing social norms around “lifestyle choices” (like not having children), defining gentrification as a result of individual consumer preferences. Or they might define it as the result of collective consumption patterns, which happens in arguments about “gay gentrification.” Some define gentrification as a process of white people moving to Black neighborhoods and pushing long-term Black residents out of major urban centers such as Washington D.C., Chicago, and Philadelphia. Still others merely accept that gentrification is a “natural” and unavoidable phenomenon. In general, these groups view gentrification as a short-term problem to be corrected by policy tweaks, such as reforming residential zoning laws, or “better” individual choices [1].

Instead of individual or even policy choices, Marxists understand gentrification as a process that is fundamentally caused by the laws of capitalism—as part and parcel of its regular cycle of capital accumulation—coupled with racism and other forms of oppression. In this article, we explain the underlying forces that produce gentrification by turning to Marx and Engels before covering more recent research and organizing around the topic. At the end, we discuss the practical implications of a revolutionary understanding of gentrification.

Housing under capitalism and the foundations of gentrification

The starting point for any discussion about housing under capitalism is commodification. In capitalist society, housing—like essentially everything else—is produced primarily as something to be sold for a profit. Its use-value (i.e. providing shelter) is subordinated to its exchange-value (how much it can be sold for). This is why millions of people in the U.S. lose their homes to eviction or foreclosure each year, while at the same time, there is an abundance of vacant housing: because the vacant housing will remain in the hands of capital until it can return a sufficient exchange-value.

The driving motive of capitalists is not simply to make a profit, but to indefinitely maximize profits. This leads capitalists to concentrate their investments in the industries and geographical regions that are most profitable, while simultaneously extracting from or neglecting other areas. Due to the competitive nature of capitalism, if one capitalist finds a profitable area, others will soon follow to compete in the same region, market or industry. In time, the competition between capitalists will drive down the rate of profits made in the respective area, and capital will flow out of the now saturated area to seek out new areas for investment.

The development of capitalist cities exemplifies this phenomenon. In the process of industrialization, capitalists invested in building up the means of production such as factories and machines in urban areas, increasing their capacity to produce and sell more commodities. As mentioned above, the movement of capital influences the movement of people. As capitalist investment concentrated in cities, workers did as well. Many moved from rural areas characterized by underinvestment into the cities to pursue employment [2].

Between 1820 and 1920, the percentage of U.S. residents living in cities increased from 7.2 to 51.2 percent. In Capital , Marx describes a similar process playing out in England in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, writing, “the more rapidly capital accumulates in an industrial or commercial town, the more rapidly flows the stream of exploitable human material, the more miserable are the improvised dwellings of the labourers” [3].

Marx notes the poor living conditions for workers and sketches a process we would call gentrification today in this passage:

“The intimate connexion between the pangs of hunger of the most industrious layers of the working class, and the extravagant consumption, coarse or refined, of the rich, for which capitalist accumulation is the basis, reveals itself only when the economic laws are known. It is otherwise with the ‘housing of the poor.’ Every unprejudiced observer sees that the greater the centralisation of the means of production, the greater is the corresponding heaping together of the labourers, within a given space; that therefore the swifter capitalistic accumulation, the more miserable are the dwellings of the working-people. ‘Improvements’ of towns, accompanying the increase of wealth, by the demolition of badly built quarters, the erection of palaces for banks, warehouses, &c., the widening of streets for business traffic, for the carriages of luxury, and for the introduction of tramways, &c., drive away the poor into even worse and more crowded hiding places. On the other hand, every one knows that the dearness of dwellings is in inverse ratio to their excellence, and that the mines of misery are exploited by house speculators with more profit or less cost than ever were the mines of Potosi. The antagonistic character of capitalist accumulation, and therefore of the capitalistic relations of property generally” [4].

Here, Marx makes critical points about housing under capitalism that are still relevant today. He describes extremely unsafe and exploitative housing conditions for workers in cities. Homes are crowded and neglected as landlords profit from rent payments while reinvesting little or none of that rent money into maintaining good housing conditions because that would interfere with their profitability.

The conditions were so bad that government officials in Great Britain uncharacteristically encroached on the rights of capital by implementing housing sanitary codes, not out of the kindness of their hearts, but because they feared the spread of disease and other social risks. This is what Friedrich Engels found in his study of England: “Every great city has one or more slums, where the working class is crowded together” in “a separate territory… removed from the sight of the happier classes” [5].

Second, Marx describes an early form of gentrification. Because capital continued to concentrate in cities in pursuit of expanded profits, workers were forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for urban “improvements.” As Marx notes, these were not improvements in the living conditions of workers, who remained heavily exploited, but improvements in the environment for capital to expand.

Capitalism and gentrification in the modern era

While the fundamental phenomena of commodification and uneven development under capitalism remain relevant to housing today, the context in which gentrification occurs has changed. As capital saturated cities with development in its likeness throughout the 19th to early 20th century, it created barriers to future development. Geographer Neil Smith showed that the gentrification in the mid-late 20th century resulted from capital’s need to expand productive capacity. The result was suburbanization–or the moving of production and housing outside of the city, where land was cheap and available. Capital migrated to new locations where it could pursue a higher rate of profit and took many workers with it. As a result, the value of land in cities decreased while the value of land in the suburbs increased.

Smith formulated the theory of the “rent gap,” which is the difference between current ground rents and the potential ground rents capitalists and landlords could gain through redevelopment. The rent gap explains how, in the U.S. during this period of time, capital moved from the city to the suburbs and back again. Gentrification happens when the rent gap is wide enough to cover the costs of redevelopment with enough of a profitable return when the rents are actualized, and is not confined to cities.

Much of capitalist redevelopment occurs in the “built environment:” buildings, streets, bridges, warehouses and other infrastructure. This development requires “a large investment of capital for a long time” [6]. Once capital investments are made, the built environment needs to remain for decades in order to return sufficient surplus value or profits to justify the investment. Whatever is built cannot be demolished and still return value. The built environment is valorized piecemeal as commodities are transported on roadways, wages are transformed into rent and mortgage payments, etc. However, as the built environment is used up over time, it is also devalorized [7].

Photo by Ted Eytan. Source: Wikicommons.

The circulation of capital through buildings takes much longer than other commodities. Capitalist cities were first produced not “on a capitalist basis at all, but rather at communal or state expense” because there was not sufficient capital to invest for such a long period [8]. Today the state is still a major force in urban development. The state not only authorizes gentrification but also subsidizes it. For example, during the “Urban Renewal” of the 1950s and 60s, at least 300,000 households across the country were forcibly displaced so that their homes could be demolished to make way for redevelopment by capital. The federal government financed both this so-called “slum clearance” and the private developments that replaced these working-class homes. Today, federal and local governments sell valuable public lands to private developers for pennies on the dollar. The state guides gentrification through legislation and zoning policies, tax breaks, grants and other incentives, while moral grandstanding about “urban blight,” with ongoing policing and repression [9].

Because there is a finite amount of land in every city, once a city reaches a certain level of development, opportunities for profitable development become rarer. At a certain point, capitalists can no longer profitably invest in redeveloped neighborhoods, although this does not mean that capitalists and landlords stop profiting from cities. Having already invested capital in buildings and infrastructure, they are happy to profit from “mines of misery,” refusing to invest in maintaining these developments. In the long term, this leads to deteriorating conditions in many urban neighborhoods and even entire cities, with housing in disrepair and infrastructure crumbling. A new cycle of development and disinvestment occurs:

“Capital flows where the rate of return is highest, and the movement of capital to the suburbs along with the continual depreciation of inner-city capital, eventually produces the rent gap. When this gap grows sufficiently large, rehabilitation (or for that matter, renewal) can begin to challenge the rates of return available elsewhere, and capital flows back” [10].

This is the cycle of development, divestment and reinvestment that produces gentrification. Neighborhoods that have long been neglected are euphemistically targeted for “redevelopment” or “revitalization.”

National oppression and gentrification

Yet capital’s flight from U.S. inner cities is only understandable in the context of white supremacy and national oppression.

To escape the racist Jim Crow apartheid structure, Black people migrated from the Deep South to urban areas in the North. Yet rather than finding decent jobs and freedom from racist segregation, “these migrants entered the capitalist economy at the lowest rungs, and repeatedly were the first to suffer from de-skilling and layoffs” [11]. Many were kept out of white-dominated unions, which had, by this time, been purged of communists.

Black people were also excluded from Federal Housing Administration programs and others that provided affordable home loans to soldiers returning from World War II. In New York, for example, the 17,400 homes built were only accessible to white people.

This helps account for the urban nature of the hundreds of Black Liberation uprisings throughout the U.S. in the 1960s-70s, from Watts to Harlem.

As the technological revolution began displacing increasing numbers of workers, capital forced chronic unemployment on Black neighborhoods. Interlocking economic crises produced a recession in the 1970s, while the massive outsourcing of industrial labor threw even more workers—especially Black workers—out of factories.

To counter the growing unrest of Black and other oppressed peoples, the U.S. ruling class consolidated around a “law and order” response to repress political rebellions. The narrative they constructed equated “crime with political dissent” and “laid the basis for an enormous buildup of the state’s repressive powers” [12]. Black revolutionary organizations and Black workers were targeted and turned over to the growing mass incarceration apparatus.

The devaluation of urban rents coupled with racist repression explain the gentrification processes in U.S. urban centers that started in the late 20th century and that continue to this day through, for example, zero tolerance policing. This strategy builds on the “Broken Windows” thesis of 1982, which was published in a liberal magazine. The theory maintains “that the key to crime reduction was for the police to focus on nuisance crimes, like vandals breaking windows” [13]. The notion here is that minor crimes like graffiti or loitering will, if unchecked, lead to larger crimes.

The exemplary institution of what was eventually called zero tolerance policing was inaugurated by NYC mayor Giuliani and his chief of police, William Bratton, who “vowed to ‘clean the city’ of the ‘scum’ that apparently ‘threatened’ decent people walking down the street.” While it masqueraded as a crime policy, “it is a social cleansing strategy” in reality [14]. The “values” they articulated were clearly racist and anti-worker, as evidenced by the disproportionate numbers of working-class and people of color arrested for minor violations. Such policies are now enacted in New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and elsewhere.

Even after almost a decade of Black Lives Matter protests and rebellions, zero tolerance policing like “stop and frisk” are still policy go-tos for conservatives and liberals alike. Democratic NYC Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a former police officer and the city’s second Black mayor, ran on a campaign promise to resurrect the secret police unit involved in stop and frisk. On November 11, 2021, he said he was following through with that promise [15]. In an op-ed for the New York Daily Post , Adams said that “stop, question and frisk is a perfectly legal, appropriate and constitutional tool, when used smartly” and called it a “necessary tool” [16].

Gentrification and the housing instability and increased state repression that accompany it, radically heighten the oppression workers of oppressed genders, sexualities, nationalities, and abilities face. As Yasmina Mrabet notes, “women often tend to be the leaseholders and are first in line to be subjected to mass evictions. Women with families have difficulty securing safe, habitable, and affordable housing due to the elimination of family-sized units” [17]. The National Center for Transgender Equality found that 20 percent of transgender people in the U.S. faced anti-trans discrimination while finding housing, over 10 percent have been evicted because of their gender identity [18]. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of transgender youth subjected to homelessness increased by 88 percent [19].

Just as we cannot understand gentrification without national oppression, we cannot understand national oppression without capitalism (and vice versa). In other words, gentrification is not merely the result of racist structures and attitudes–which is evident in the fact that it is a global phenomenon and often involves interracial households. Instead, in the U.S. it is white supremacy and other forms of oppression coupled with capitalism that produce and reproduce gentrification.

The fight against gentrification: Theory, tactics, and strategy

This Marxist theory of gentrification has strategic and tactical implications. It clarifies that individual “gentrifiers”—the relatively more financially well-off workers who might move into gentrifying neighborhoods for various reasons—are not the drivers of this process and are not correct targets of organizing efforts. This is not to say that particular individuals or institutions—like real estate brokers, land developers, banks, the cops, etc.—escape responsibility and evade our struggle. It is rather to say that our ultimate aim is not to transform individuals but to transform society as a whole, and therefore create the possibility of a new kind of social being.

Photo: Eviction protest organized by Cancel the Rents. Source: Liberation News.

This analysis provides us with a starting point to effectively fight. A systemic process like gentrification can only be combated through the collective organization of working-class communities that directly confronts capital and its lackeys. This takes many forms, including, disruptions of luxury development planning processes, struggles for reforms like rent control which restrict the rights of capital, takeovers of abandoned buildings and vacant lots before they are redeveloped, and eviction defense actions that keep families in their neighborhoods.

Increasingly popular in taking rights to the city away from workers are so-called “sit-lie” ordinances that prohibit sitting or lying on sidewalks during evening and night hours so that homeless people cannot camp there. Organizers across the country have successfully defeated such ordinances and others, like those that criminalize distributing food to workers in need in certain parts of the city.

Eviction defense teams are forming across the country to protect homeless neighbors from losing access to their encampments. In Manchester, New Hampshire, a local coalition of organizers has successfully prevented 11 evictions in seven months, while in Atlanta, Georgia, organizers recently prevented an illegal eviction by slumlords Betty Rose LLC, and in Providence, Rhode Island protesters camped outside the State House to demand housing for all [20].

These intermediate collective struggles can provide working-class people with some protections, combat the alienation that is increasingly common in gentrifying neighborhoods through the relationships forged in these struggles, and prove to the working class the power of collective action. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these struggles unite our class together in head-on confrontations with capital. Here, the antagonistic, exploitative nature of capital is clearly exposed and windows for socialist consciousness to grow open up. These are some of the building blocks for a socialist revolution that will ultimately put an end to gentrification and the general misery of housing under capitalism by transforming housing from a commodity into a human right!

As Engels noted in 1872, capitalism can never solve the housing question. It can only ever “move” it around, a response that takes the form of gentrification and displacement. This is because “the same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also” [21].

Private property is at the bottom of gentrification, capitalism and white supremacy, none of which can be reformed out of each other. In essence, then, addressing each requires establishing new kinds of ownership: collective and common ownership. As Michal Murawski notes, “the city… constitutes the key site of the making and unmaking of socialism” and “the primary mechanism, which enabled the construction of the socialist city… was the deprivatization of the proprietorial structure of the city” [22]. Ownership–who has the right to use and exclude and on what grounds–is absolutely fundamental to the struggles against capitalism and racism.

Thus, while we struggle to cancel the rents, end all evictions and foreclosures, end racist police terror and mass incarceration, and provide the right to housing–all of which are attainable within capitalism–we cannot believe that these measures are enough. To truly solve the housing question and end gentrification we need a socialist revolution that will produce cities and towns, housing and parks, transportation networks and other amenities, for their use-value to the masses and not for their exchange-value for the bosses. Gentrification is not a static reality but a continual process, and it is up to us to stop it.

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We Need to Change How We Think About Gentrification

By lindsay m. miller, just before thanksgiving 2017, ink coffee displayed a sidewalk board in the middle of the five points neighborhood in denver, colorado. five points is a historically black neighborhood with many black and latino residents that, like many other neighborhoods in denver, has experienced rapid change as the city has expanded and welcomed thousands of new residents. the board read, “happily gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014.”.

Many neighborhood residents, activists, and community members responded in anger to the sign, calling it insensitive and charged it with making light of an important, and potentially harmful, process. Activists organized protests outside the store, and many residents committed to boycotting the chain of sixteen locations across Colorado.

As with many politically-loaded controversies, the company also received significant backlash on social media. By Thanksgiving Day, the founder had issued an apology via the company Facebook page, stating that, before the incident, he “did not fully appreciate the very real and troubling issue of gentrification.”

Gentrification is a political topic that is deeply emotional and personal to many. Also, when it happens, it happens very quickly; so many of us lack the social or historical context with which to root our opinions or suggest solutions. What’s more, it is a topic that, like so many others, integrates political ideology, economics, and legacies of systemic, de jure , and de facto racism.

For all these reasons, conversations about gentrification – whether informal or officially organized – tend to turn into ideological boxing matches. And like all discussions related to social change, the first step must not be to pick up our gloves. We need to examine the ring.

Though gentrification manifests itself on the local level, its causes are national and international. To address this challenge will require a better understanding of the context for this complicated process so that we can be thoughtful and realistic with our local, national, and even global solutions.  

What is Gentrification?

The term “gentrification” was originally coined in the 1960s by Ruth Glass to describe the transformation of working-class London neighborhoods into middle and upper-class neighborhoods. Colloquially, gentrification has come to mean “a process in which a neighborhood gains wealth and sees its population become more affluent, whiter, and younger.” 1

Debates about gentrification tend to fall into one of two camps. On the one hand, people argue that gentrification is good for cities because it brings a higher tax base, revitalizes previously derelict neighborhoods, improves public safety, and attracts newcomers to boost the economy. On the other hand, there are those that argue that gentrification is bad , an evil made possible through decades of disinvestment of poor communities and the disenfranchisement of communities of color. Critics of gentrification point to displacement as the primary threat to low-income communities. Displacement is the process by which a neighborhood becomes too expensive for its long-term residents to live so that, over time, lower-income residents get priced out due to rising rents, property taxes, or general cost of living.

Gentrification in Context  

First, gentrification is not solely a result of individual actions. Just as public investments in things like highways and mortgages spurred suburbanization, public investments have encouraged re-urbanization.

One of the most important types of public investment that spurs gentrification is public transit. Neighborhoods near subways, light-rails, busses, and other forms of mass-transit attract affluent people in dense metros. This happens for two reasons: first, it allows people to exchange long car commutes for shorter commutes on public transit. Second, it allows relatively affluent people to ditch their cars and spend more money on rent. This has the effect of driving property values up in gentrifying neighborhoods because individuals moving in are able to spend a higher proportion of their already higher salaries on housing.

Other types of public investment that spur gentrification are investments in public schools, including the creation of new charter and magnet schools; investment in universities, colleges, and affiliated medical centers; new or improved parks and open space; and investments in waterfronts in formerly industrial cities that transform old warehouses and factories into restaurants, bars, workspaces, and housing.

Beyond understanding city-level policies that attract middle class people to various neighborhoods, it is important to understand the problem of gentrification in its global and national contexts. Even some of the best writers on gentrification, and the city leaders most dedicated to addressing it, often address gentrification as the result of city-level policies and, thus, view it as a problem that can be resolved by cities alone. This questionable perspective keeps the conversation away from much-needed debate about the role cities play in the global political economy and national policies that can address the problem on much wider scale.

Many economists argue that the United States and other advanced nations now have “post-industrial” economies. Urbanist Richard Florida calls the new economy the “creative economy;” economist Enrico Moretti calls it an “innovation” economy; managerial theorist Peter Drucker calls it a “knowledge economy.” Importantly, what all these terms have in common is that advanced countries rely primarily on the production of ideas, rather than physical goods, to grow.

Furthermore, while the U.S. relied on manufacturing in the first half of the twentieth century for economic strength, manufacturing has declined in this country and expanded to other countries that still rely on it for growth. Moretti writes:

Over the past fifty years, the U.S. economy has gradually shifted away from traditional manufacturing toward the creation of knowledge, ideas, and innovation. As traditional manufacturing jobs keep disappearing, the innovation sector keeps growing. It will soon be what manufacturing used to be in the 1950s and 1960s: America’s main engine of prosperity. 2

Globally, manufacturing and the production of material goods has been transferred to industrializing economies in the developing world, while post-industrial economies like the United States, Japan, and most of Europe adopt innovation and knowledge-driven strategies for growth.

This global economic reconfiguration has produced a situation in advanced economies where income classes at the top and the bottom are growing, while the middle steadily shrinks. Moretti writes:

In general, job opportunities in the U.S. labor market as a whole have been concentrated in high-skill, high-wage jobs (professional, technical, and managerial occupations) and low-skill, low-wage jobs (food service, personal care, and security service occupations). Job opportunities for middle-wage, middle-skill white collar and blue-collar workers have declined sharply. 3

Here, we see that U.S. jobs are most concentrated in the top and bottom rung of labor when measured by pay and skill. The stable jobs that supported a vast  middle class during much of the twentieth century are disappearing steadily, while the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy are now very low-wage service jobs—disproportionately occupied by women and people of color—and high-wage knowledge work occupied by mostly highly-educated whites. 4 (However, in some metros, the non-white share of those occupying “creative” occupations exceeds 40 percent, with the most diverse “creative classes” along the coasts and the Texas/Mexico border.) 5

From 1973-2011, the United States experienced many waves of economic growth. Yet, while the productivity of the U.S. workforce rose 80.1 percent, the wages of the average worker rose only 4.2 percent in the same period. 6 Service work in hospitality, home health care, and other services are now the largest section of the U.S. economy, but this work remains very low-paid and typically comes with few or no benefits.

The federal minimum wage has remained so low—at $7.25 per hour—that less than 1 percent of full-time minimum wage workers can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in any state in the U.S. without being designated as “housing burdened.” 7 Even states that have raised the minimum wage to $11 per hour, or companies like Target and Walmart that have done the same, have not raised it high enough to allow a family of two to acquire basic needs like housing, food, clothing, and healthcare. 8 In 2017, an estimated 39.7 million Americans lived in poverty, as measured by estimates of the level of income needed to cover basic needs. 9

The Realities of Gentrification and Urban Poverty  

Gentrification gets a lot of attention by news outlets, academics, and cultural critics. In 2015, journalist Peter Moskowitz wrote a book called How to Kill a City that rebuked local governments, for-profit developers, “hipsters,” and “yuppies” for the damage he saw sweeping across cities like New Orleans, New York, Detroit, and San Francisco. In 2014, filmmaker Spike Lee decried gentrification as little more than a modern take on colonialism, a “Christopher Columbus Syndrome” that propels whites to push people of color out of their homes. Many academics, too, have denounced gentrification as inherently harmful to low-income communities and robust economic development in general a threat to all but the wealthy.

While these interpretations ring true in many respects, the realities of gentrification are more complex. Displacement, for example, is not always the inevitable result of gentrification. Multiple studies by Lance Freeman, an urban planning professor at Columbia University, have suggested that direct displacement of long-term, low-income residents by wealthy in-movers happens relatively seldomly. Displacement tends to happen via the exclusion of low-income in-movers in gentrifying neighborhoods rather than via the direct displacement of low-income individuals already residing there. 10

What’s more, Freeman’s book, There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up , demonstrates that long-term residents’ views on gentrification can be quite ambivalent. Many long-term residents Freeman interviewed welcomed the improved access to services and amenities that come with investment, as long as that investment didn’t lead to displacement. 11

Gentrification-fueled displacement is a hot topic with a myriad of political, historical, and social justice implications. Yet, our fascination—and often visceral reactions to it—detract attention from a much more pervasive problem facing cities: persistent, concentrated poverty. A 2014 study by City Observatory tracked neighborhood change in 51 metropolitan areas from 1970-2010 found that the number of high-poverty census tracts nearly tripled from 1970 to 2010, and 75 percent of 1970 high-poverty neighborhoods were still high-poverty four decades later. The likelihood that a neighborhood “rebounded” from high poverty to relatively low poverty (below 15 percent) was 1 in 20. Only 100,000 poor people in 1970 lived in neighborhoods that have since “rebounded” by 2010.  The number of high-poverty neighborhoods in urban areas has tripled, and the number of individuals living in high-poverty neighborhoods has doubled in the past four decades. 12

The number of poor persons living in “fallen star” neighborhoods—those that were not high poverty in 1970 but now exceed the poverty rate of 30 percent—has increased by 1.25 million, while the poor population in rebounding neighborhoods has decreased by only 67,000. In other words, exponentially more poor people lived in neighborhoods that were newly poor rather than were displaced or pushed out of neighborhoods that gentrified in 2010.

In much of the same time period that gentrification has garnered attention, urban poverty has dramatically increased. Substantially more non-poor neighborhoods have become poor than poor neighborhoods have become wealthy.

A myriad of studies has already demonstrated the deleterious effects of concentrated poverty. Concentrated poverty is associated with higher crime, worse mental and physical health, low-quality public services, and lower economic mobility. It also disproportionately affects people of color: 75 percent of poor people living in urban neighborhoods with concentrated poverty were African-American or Latino in 2010. 13 Concentrated poverty and segregation inflict a double-blow on communities of color, too often ensuring that opportunity is determined by one’s race, place, and income.

Growth Is Not the Problem; Equity Is  

In times of robust economic growth—and in places of rapid change—it can be easy to forget the struggle that comes from economic desolation. Growth seems so fast, so unpredictable, that we resist its externalities. We might even start to idealize times passed, desolate neighborhoods that don’t bear the burden of rising housing costs, or the de jure racial segregation of the 1950s and 1960s. We might think: segregation was real, but at least there wasn’t gentrification .

We start to fear growth itself, rather than pinpointing the real evil: inequitable distribution of the fruits of growth.

It’s easy to think that a problem that manifests in urban settings can be solved with urban solutions. Yet, gentrification is just one symptom of a greater problem: a political and economic environment in which even well-paid workers spend over half of their salaries on rent, allows almost two-thirds of our country’s workers to be paid unlivable wages, and does not guarantee, or even actively promote, access to necessities like healthcare or quality education.

Gentrification is a problem that can only be manifested where vast wealth inequality already exists. Perhaps it hits home so harshly because it forces all of us to look at our country’s legacy of economic and racial injustice square in the face: in our own neighborhoods, right outside our front doors.

In 1993, Peter Dreier wrote in the National Civic Review :

[N]o city can solve its social and economic problems on its own. Progressive municipal policies can make a difference, but they cannot address the root causes, or even most of the symptoms, of urban distress. Unless the federal government is committed to addressing America’s urban crisis—and finding common ground between cities, suburbs, and all Americans—the nation will continue to stagnate in the increasingly competitive global marketplace. 14

Over twenty years later, this problem remains. City leaders must recognize that unless we address income and wealth inequality on the national level, cities will continue to be driven apart and low-income communities will continue to have little say in the future of their own neighborhoods.

What Can Cities Do?

Equitable development strategies are some of the most innovative strategies to address the negative consequences of rapid, urban growth. Equitable development, as defined by the Local and Regional Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), is when, “quality of life outcomes, such as affordable housing, quality education, living wage employment, healthy environments, and transportation are equitably experienced by the people currently living and working in the neighborhood, as well as for new people moving in. Public and private investments, programs, and policies in neighborhoods meet the needs of residents, including communities of color, and reduce racial disparities, taking into account past history and current conditions.” 15

Local equitable development strategies work to ensure that the benefits of growth are enjoyed by everyone, and that long-term residents can “prosper in place.” Equitable development is necessarily citizen-led and fueled by aggressive civic engagement. Some contemporary examples of equitable development are Seattle’s Community Cornerstones and Equitable Development Framework and the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Boston. 16

Another exceptional example of resident-driven equitable development is the Melrose Commons project in the South Bronx. There, residents and business owners came together in response to a proposed market-rate condominium and apartment development project. They formed the organization “We Stay/Nos Quedamos” in February of 1993 and developed a proposal for a new plan that included affordable housing and space for locally-owned businesses. In 1994, their plan for the project was approved by the city.

Other rapidly growing metros like Denver would do well to mirror these examples.

Gentrification is a highly contested issue, in part because of its stark visibility. Gentrification has the power to displace low-income families or, more often, prevent low-income families from moving into previously affordable neighborhoods. 17 It also has the power to completely transform the cultural landscape of a neighborhood—changing everything from a neighborhood’s colloquial name, to the use of public space, to the small businesses that can locate there.

This controversial urban problem, however, should not detract attention from one of our less visible, yet growing urban problems: concentrated, chronic, urban poverty. It should also not blind us to the widespread problems facing American cities: what Richard Florida calls the “new urban crisis” that represents nothing less than “the crisis of modern capitalism, writ large.” 18

Cities are at the nexus of the globalized, knowledge economy. To be competitive, cities must attract highly-educated, highly-skilled talent and encourage urbanized, technological, and creative growth. Yet, growth accompanied by vast economic inequality is not only unsustainable, it deepens the social problems created by policies past. Cities, and the nation, would do well to note that equality—and equitable development—are in all our best interest.

Lindsay M. Miller is a Robert H. Rawson, Jr. Fellow at the National Civic League. She holds a Master of Social Sciences in Social Justice and is completing her Master of Public Administration at the University of Colorado Denver.  

1  Richard Florida, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 59.

2 Enrico Moretti, The New Geography of Jobs (New York: Mariner Books, 2012), 47.

3 Ibid, 40.

4 Joan Entmacher, Lauren Frohlich, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Emily Martin, and Liz Watson, Underpaid and Overloaded: Women in Low-Wage Jobs (Washington, D.C.: National Women’s Law Center, 2014), https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/final_nwlc_lowwagereport2014.pdf.

5 Richard Florida, “Mapping the Diversity of the Creative Class, CityLab , May 11, 2017, https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/05/mapping-the-diversity-of-the-creative-class/516171/.

6 Hendrick Smith, Who Stole the American Dream? (New York: Random House, 2012), 73.

7 Ester Bloom, “Only 0.1 percent of US Minimum Wage Workers Can Afford a 1-Bedroom Apartment, Report Finds,” CNBC.com , July 14, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-minimum-wage-workers-can-afford-a-1-bedroom.html .

8 Daniel B. Kline, “What Living on an $11 Minimum Wage Looks Like,” USA Today , Jan. 11, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/budget-and-spending/2018/01/11/what-living-on-an-11-minimum-wage-looks-like/109360122/ .

9 “What is the Current Poverty Rate in the United States?” Center for Poverty Research, University of California, Davis, Oct. 15, 2018, https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states.

10 Lance Freeman, “Displacement or Succession? Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods,” Urban Affairs Review 40, no. 4 (2005): 463-491.

11 Lance Freeman, There Goes the ‘Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2006).

12 City Observatory website, accessed January 16, 2019 at https://cityobservatory.org/lost-in-place/

14 Peter Dreier, “Ray Flynn’s Legacy: American Cities and the Progressive Agenda,” National Civic Review 82, no. 4 (1993): 403.

15 Ryan Curren, Nora Liu, and Dwayne March, Equitable Development as a Tool to Advance Racial Equity (Local and Regional Government Alliance on Race and Equity, 2015), https://www.racialequityalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/GARE-Equitable-Development.pdf.

17  Freeman, “Displacement or Succession?”

18  Florida, The New Urban Crisis.

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Gentrification Essays

Gentrification is a complex issue that affects many urban areas. The process of gentrification can lead to economic growth, but it can also have negative consequences for low-income residents. In recent years, the topic of gentrification has become increasingly important in public discourse, and many scholars have studied its effects.

If you are looking to write an essay on gentrification, there are many different directions you could take. Some possible topics include the causes of gentrification, the effects of gentrification on local communities, and strategies for addressing gentrification.

One important consideration when writing about gentrification is the need to understand the perspectives of different groups of people. For example, while some may see gentrification as a positive force that brings new investment and revitalization to urban areas, others may view it as a form of displacement that leads to the loss of community and cultural identity.

Ultimately, the key to writing a successful essay on gentrification is to thoroughly research the topic and consider multiple perspectives. By doing so, you can develop a nuanced understanding of the issue and present a compelling argument that takes into account the needs and concerns of all stakeholders.

If you are struggling to come up with gentrification essay topics, consider this section and explore various essay prompts for free..

 Gentrification and the Continuous Impact Throughout New York City Communities 

Generations of all kinds have arrived to this nation with dreams of living a life of success. Gentrification removes lower class citizens, and in turn increases the cost of living and leads to major demographical changes. Gentrification certainly has some advantages, but overall it has...

• Gentrification
• New York City

Critical Analysis of Annotated Bibliography on Gentrification

Alters, Sandra M., et al. 'The Law, the Courts, and the Homeless.' Homeless in America: How Could It Happen Here?, Detroit, Gale, 2006, pp. 63-71. This source talks about how gentrification forces out low-income families and changes 'skid rows' or single-room occupancy hotels to make...

• Homelessness
• Income Inequality

Spike Lee's View on Gentrification and Why It Should Be Stopped

In this essay, I will agree with Spike Lee's views on gentrification because he mentions how culture is being steered away from neighborhoods because of the new investors wanting to homogenize everything for the new wealthy residents. Also because even if new residents have a...

• Social Class
• Social Problems

The Positive and Negative Impacts of Gentrification

Gentrification is the complex social process by which large amounts of money and investment, pour quickly into lower income communities. Thus, leading to the displacement of many long-standing residents and local independent businesses. The effects of this process can be observed across almost every major...

Positive And Negative Impact Of Gentrification

Gentrification, also known as Chelseafication, is defined as the upgrading of older properties to higher-income housing and where dwellings are modernised which causes it to have a higher value. Gentrification has both positive and negative impacts on the current and future inhabitants of a suburbs....

• Housing Market
• Real Estate

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Negative Impact of Gentrification on Society And Business

The first time to hear the word gentrification was after overhearing a discussion between my mother and uncle. It was evident that most people in my community did not want it as she explained to him. I later heard about gentrification when the government started...

Development of Gentrification and Its Impact On Society

When cities began using urban renewal, it was aimed to make better living conditions in the urban, low-income areas. However, the revitalization of such neighborhoods attracted wealthier investors seeking capital gain. These revitalization projects led to the destruction of the homes of the poor. These...

• Urbanization

Gentrification in San Francisco Neighborhoods In Historical and Biographical Perspective

Intro: Gentrification is the process of erasing cultural and social history in low-income neighborhoods (mostly people of color) thus resulting in displacement. According to PBS, minorities made up of 75% of people displaced nationwide due to the new urban renewal projects in the 20th century....

Best topics on Gentrification

1.  Gentrification and the Continuous Impact Throughout New York City Communities 

2. Critical Analysis of Annotated Bibliography on Gentrification

3. Spike Lee’s View on Gentrification and Why It Should Be Stopped

4. The Positive and Negative Impacts of Gentrification

5. Positive And Negative Impact Of Gentrification

6. Negative Impact of Gentrification on Society And Business

7. Development of Gentrification and Its Impact On Society

8. Gentrification in San Francisco Neighborhoods In Historical and Biographical Perspective

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Gentrification and the history of power and oppression of african americans in washington dc., robert l. cosby, ph.d., msw, mphil..

Assistant Dean of Administration Associate Professor Howard University School of Social Work Director, Multidisciplinary Gerontology Center 601 Howard Place, NW, # 220 Washington, DC 20059 [email protected] tel. - 202-806-4739  mobile - 202-494-1060

https://academic.oup.com/book/51677/chapter-abstract/419708640?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Introduction

The chapter's information is offered to help elucidate how gentrification has evolved.  The impact of gentrification on Social Work has not been widely discussed (Thurber, 2021), and is  mainly seen through the clients and the people that Social Workers serve.  The use of terms Black and African American are used interchangeably. Gentrification has evolved but continues to show at its core examples and links to inequities in power, oppression, government sanctions, and implicit and explicit bias.  These biases have coalesced to form systemic racism that has played a role with gentrification in Washington, DC. 

Homeownership, financial stability, and generational wealth are important goals for most families in the United States.  Oral histories of African Americans, legal records, and oppressive practices against African Americans elucidate how these goals have been denied because of systemic racism in Washington, District of Columbia (DC).  The oppressive practices have compounded for many years, to deter African Americans from attaining generational wealth, home ownership, and financial stability.  The history of Gentrification needs to be shared and understood by social workers and all those in helping professions.  History reveals oppression and power through subtle and overt ways that include the loss and robbery of culture forced upon African Americans.  Cumulatively, this oppression has denied African Americans the benefits of generational wealth, in laws and policies from the highest levels of government down to the individual in the District.  The District of Columbia has historically wrestled with challenges of Congressional oversight because US Congress can "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" (over the federal District of Columbia according to the US Constitution, Article 1; Section 8; Clause 17 (Fauntroy, 2003). So, US Congress can mettle in the affairs of the District. Gentrification is tied to a history of racism in Washington, DC (King, 2022; Summer, 2020 & Boyd, 1996).  To better understand how race and racism have negatively affected Blacks, one must understand that race and racism are social constructs that have shaped people's lives (Smedley, 2005).  History reveals that the foundation of racism has evolved from slavery and its aftermath.  Slavery helped economically to build this country (Genovese, 1976).  The benefits have been tied to laws, money, policies, and practices enacted by those in power at the federal, state, and local levels since the 1700s (Prince, 2016).  The continued oppression with government legal sanctions has provided privilege and benefits of generational wealth for some.  These benefits have led to gentrification and the economic advancement of one group at the expense of another.  As a result in small or large part, the process of gentrification exists in many states across the United States, including the District of Columbia.  Black people have been and continue to be oppressed and pushed out of generational wealth and housing opportunities like gentrification.  

Limitations for Blacks and the Washington Black Codes

In the history of Housing ownership in the US, racism has been pervasive (King, 2022).  Racism and indifference perpetrated by Federal, State, and local governments created impediments for Blacks.  These impediments in the 1800s included  ’Black Codes’ that prohibited Blacks from owning and operating many businesses including eating establishments and taverns.  One sanctioned trade involved driving horse-drawn carts or carriages ​ (Provine, 1973).  Black Codes or Laws existed in many states in the US between 1830 and 1865 (Middleton, 2020).  The Black Laws of the North and the Black Codes of the South were laws designed to enforce slavery, and prevent Whites, Mulattoes, freed slaves, etc., from interfering with slavery, including re-capturing runaway slaves regardless of abolitionist beliefs (Middleton, 2020).  The laws included fines and or imprisonment for those that interfered with slavery.

To illustrate how the Black Laws impacted Blacks, free, and indentured slaves, consider the following example: In Washington, DC, and the Southern States south of the Mason Dixon line in 1835, “the Black Codes” were, in fact, criminal and civil laws governing both slave and free African Americans ( Middleton, 2020) .  At that time, there was a curfew whereby a free black person had to be home by10 p.m.  If the Police caught them after, a White person had to post a bond of $500 guaranteeing the good behavior of the Black male or female.  Black Codes were copied or inherited from Maryland and Virginia (Pulliam, 1835). 

Gentrification, directly and indirectly, benefited Whites because Blacks’ labor enhanced Whites ‘economic position.  Whites' in turn, were able to pass on their advantage of wealth through generational wealth and the benefits of inheritance to their offspring.  Over time cheap Black labor further enhanced White family wealth by consolidating and accumulating White assets and future opportunities. 

In the 1865-1869 period, US President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner and Confederate sympathizer, returned most of the Southern land secured by the Union troops during the Civil War to the losing Southern Confederates (eleven States).  Southern land owners continued from pre- to post-Civil War periods to build political and economic wealth for Whites by selling cotton, rice, and tobacco (Ransom, 1989).  Cheap laborers were called slaves before the Civil War, and Black sharecroppers after the Civil War.  Whites retained power economically and politically, provided they maintained a cheap workforce (Wineapple, 2019; Gates, 2020; Levine, 2021).  First, the wealth of plantation owners, including those in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, built their assets from slavery.  Second, they continued building wealth after the Civil War by using uneducated and poorly educated emancipated Blacks as cheap labor.  White families, as former plantation owners now farmers, merchants, and profiteers, were often more educated than slaves and took advantage as slaves were forbidden from learning to read or receive any education.  These practices enabled Whites to maximize their resources with local and state racist policies and practices designed to legally 'enslave' and oppress Blacks (Wineapple, 2019).  Such policies and practices included forced ‘contracts or agreements’ for sharecropping and other forced labor, restricted housing and education, and other mandates.  All were designed to maintain a cheap workforce.  Whites used these labor agreements that, in effect, chained Blacks to the land and kept them there with Jim Crow laws (Gates, 2020, Lewis, 2001).  These actions further oppressed Blacks over decades by minimizing formal education and impeding better employment and housing opportunities (Levine, 2021).   By the late 1860s through 1950s, Black families sought new opportunities in places like Washington, DC, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City (Wilkerson, 2020).  The goal of a better life for Blacks through better employment was a goal not always attained due in large part due to White oppression (Gates, 2020 & Wilkerson, 2020).  Still, some Blacks successfully secured housing ownership and rental housing in Washington, DC, during Reconstruction and well into the 20 th century. 

Opportunities to Amass Wealth Taken From Blacks 

Buying a house has consistently been important for Black Washingtonians, like for many Americans, because buying a house was tied to the American Dream of success.   Opportunities for Blacks to acquire housing and become homeowners and business owners in Washington, DC, were primarily fueled by Black government workers’ incomes ( Weems, 1998; Yellin, 2013 ).   By 1915, the number of Blacks in Washington, DC, had increased as they obtained federal jobs.  These jobs provided revenue, which helped fuel Black businesses and communities.  Black government workers had risen to almost five percent of the District workforce. (Weems, 1998).  President Woodrow Wilson is credited with establishing de Jure’ (by law) ‘racist policies and government regulations designed to demote Blacks stating no Blacks could supervise a White person.  These racist policies included employment and housing policies which added to the wealth of Whites at the expense of Blacks ( Marshall, 2019) .  

Federal Programs were introduced providing relief and support for Federal Workers. They included mortgages and social programs but less support for Black Federal Workers (Gooding, 2018).  “Early social benefits established powerful norms about who deserved aid, what form of aid should be given, and which public and private agencies should provide aid and why” (Jensen, 2005, p.23).  Hayward (2013) explains how these policies and actions led to "racialized spaces" for Blacks.  Despite these policies and economic downturn, black people living in Washington, DC, were resilient (Boyd, 2017).

During the Great Depression, beginning in 1934, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Administration campaigned on a platform to get Americans working again with its 'New Deal' programs.  Federal policies adopted or adapted to work at the State and local levels, from the Civil Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration, to Social Security, to the mortgage lending market of banks, real estate agents, and brokers, were designed to stimulate the economy and get people back to work.  All the labor and housing efforts and community development were designed to help White communities recover (Taylor, 2013).  Such was the case for White Washingtonians.  However, Black Washingtonians were told to stand in line behind Whites.  The FDR policies did help some Blacks, but the racist policies continued consistently to create generational wealth for Whites while preventing Blacks from homeownership and generational wealth (Hawkins, 2020 & Feagin, 1999).After 1934 the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) established, and the Veterans Administration (VA) copied FHA discriminatory practices as a continuation of policies built on the FHA Underwriters Handbook for Banks, Real Estate Brokers, and Real Estate Agents (Rothstein, 2017).  So, when the VA copied the historical trend of institutional and systemic racism across the nation, they denied GIs of color from obtaining favorable financing through VA mortgage loans.

In effect, the Underwriter’s Handbook provided incentives and channeled wealth and the accumulation of wealth towards Whites and away from Blacks (Hayward, 2013).  Areas where Blacks lived in Washington, DC, were considered poor risks for securing federally backed mortgages and local construction, so in effect, lending in Black neighborhoods was forbidden.

"After the passage of the Housing Act of 1937, low-income public housing projects mushroomed in inner cities, replacing slums and consolidating "minority neighborhoods." Major road construction and suburbanization further segregated American cities.  At the same time, black Americans and other citizens of color found it extremely hard to qualify for home loans, as the FHA and the Veterans Administration's mortgage programs largely served only white applicants.  Those discriminatory practices prevented people of color from accumulating wealth through homeownership." (Williams, 2020) “Racial heterogeneity, in particular, was worrisome to the FHA. ... Employed.  84 8 H Federal Housing Administration, Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act Washington, DC.  the US"(Mapping Segregation DC, 2022)

The document falsely detailed how Black housing area developments were poor investments and strongly suggested that Blacks ‘chose’ to live in squalid conditions.  Further, no federal FHA monies were to be loaned to Blacks, forcing them away from homeownership.  Alternatively, some Black persons chose to raise monies on their own or sought out Black-owned banks like Industrial Bank of Washington (Josiah, 2004) to provide mortgage loan financing.  Whites historically have been able to build financial nest eggs with federal support while FHA demonstrated how Blacks were denied  the same opportunities.  Over time this has created great generational wealth for one group.  

Defining Gentrification

Gentrification is known differently in the public and scholarly sectors ( Zuk, 2015) .  Planners, developers, and government officials see gentrification often as removing or upgrading antiquated or shabby housing in urban or rural settings, removing the lower-income renters or owners, and renewing or improving the spaces ( Lees, 2010).  For a definition, gentrification builds upon the definitions offered by Sociologist Ruth Glass (1964) and Chris Hamnett (2000; 2003), involving a complex series of processes whereby more affluent, often middle-class people push out working-class people.  The property is financially improved, causing land, housing values, and prices to increase.  Hamnett (2000 & 2003) added a cultural component to the financial improvement concept of gentrification where the newer residents have a different appreciation of the new cultural norms, space, and environment. There is a cultural shift brought by the people moving in who bring with them more resources.  The shift is deeply felt by those pushed out, describing the older residents’ cultural norms as being discounted, removed, or forgotten (Robinson, 2022) .  In effect, Gentrification is the process when new residents move into a neighborhood with or without intent and change the neighborhood’s cultural history, economic background, and foundation then re-brand it with new cultural names, history, and orientation.   There are many definitions used over the past five decades since Sociologist Ruth Glass (1964) coined the term "gentrification."  Added to that term are other sub-terms like rural gentrification, super-gentrification, and others.  All appear to have cultural and political methods to define and give purchase to communities (Zuk, 2015 & Kasinitz, 1988). 

Defining Gentrification and Understanding History of Racism in the District of Columbia

In 1964, Ruth Glass was the first to coin the term “gentrification,” and she defined the  phenomenon in London, England. Glass argues that gentrification involves a process of an area that is adapted for refurbishment and revitalization of an urban space that results in the displacement of low-income people who previously lived there (Glass, 1964).  Another definition of gentrification used by the United Nations UN–Habitat's Leading Change: is "The process of social change that takes place in a neighborhood often previously occupied by low-income residents, as more affluent people move in" (UN-Habitat 2018, p. 5).

Systemic Racism Tied to Gentrification in Washington, DC.

 Throughout much of the US, and arguably until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s (Gates, 2020), even in the District, gentrification has been a growing economic, racial, policy, and social work issue.  However, social workers have written little about gentrification (Thurber, 2021).  Social Work practice, group work, community organizing, and advocacy have been active in Washington, DC communities.  As social workers explore solutions for the gentrification equation, more can be done with planning, research, and finding alternatives that promote affordable housing for all groups, particularly older adults.  

The impact of gentrification on housing and communities creates untenable situations for many Blacks in the District.  Historically, Whites have received disproportionate support from the government at the local, state, and federal levels.  The issue of racism over time and the economic and policy implications that continue to exacerbate the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites contribute to gentrification (Thurber, 2021; Koma, 2020 & Helmuth, 2019). In 1934 the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration introduced the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), tasked with providing housing to families recovering from losses due to the Depression (Hirsh, 2000). 

As stated, the FHA legally  fostered segregation and discrimination into our society and its public policy (Rothstein, 2017).  The impact was so great that by 1950, the FHA and VA were insuring half of all new mortgages nationwide (Rothstein, 2017, p 70).  DC Racial Covenants were also used as another way to exclude Blacks from White neighborhoods (Rose, 2016). Furthermore, these programs made it such that African Americans were significantly restricted from purchasing homes earmarked for Whites (Rothstein, 2017).  

The historical record of homeownership for Blacks is complex when you add the countless historical impediments from 1791 at the incorporation of Washington, DC, through the 20th and 21st centuries.  When coupled with fewer opportunities for Black homeownership, the opportunity to pass on wealth through generational wealth and inheritance is greatly diminished.  Thus, it should not be surprising that the primary path for Black families to the middle class is becoming narrower and rockier.  

A few recent statistics echo the impact of these government policies and practices’ long-term historical and economic outcomes, either explicitly or implicitly condoned at the Federal, State, and Local levels (Thompson, 2022).  More recently, Whites and Asians receive lower mortgage rates than Blacks over 80 percent of the time (Desilver, 2017).  Homeownership rates in Washington, DC for Whites are 50.3% vs.35.2% for Blacks, but White homes are seven times the value of Black homes (Thompson, 2022).  Blacks remain twice as likely to be denied a housing loan.  Homeownership rates for Blacks remain the lowest of all racial groups in the US (Snowden, 2022).  The information suggests that there is little generational wealth for Blacks.  According to the US Census Bureau, the rate of African American homeownership nationally was 44.1% at the close of 2020, while the rate of white homeownership was 74.5%, proof of the widening gap (Thompson, 2022).  So, in the end, the historical path to the gentrification of generational wealth is fueled by resources that one group has and the other does not (Weller & Roberts, 2021).  Gentrification removes affordable housing in places like Washington, DC, and affordable housing stock diminishes over time as higher-priced private renters and homeowners replace it. 

The process of gentrification is deeply rooted in dynamic change and economic trends.  The effects and the associated trajectories are, to a large degree, determined by policies (Weller, 2021) and each community's local context.  In the District of Columbia, this context requires that we review the historical layers of oppression, specifically, the physical and social characteristics of the neighborhoods and communities where gentrification has occurred.  Helbrecht (2017) speaks to the economic induced displacement, consequent loss of place, and the rising resistance (by people being displaced) in reaction to what is imposed by gentrification.  Critical Race Theory (CRT) is one theory used to "contextualize the continued role that race plays in the lives of African Americans and other people of color who are not often privileged by mainstream educational, cultural, political, and economic opportunities" (Lawson-Borders, 2019).

Older adults residing in these newly gentrified communities, such as Washington, DC, are at risk for poor outcomes (Crewe, 2017; Smith, 2020).  Persons at risk may be so due to race, class, and racism.  Older adults are on fixed incomes.  Many lower-income older African Americans adults in the District , have had to address long histories of racism, many of whom are Black, suggesting there is an impact of racism in gentrification (Prince, 2016).  Gentrification affects poorer communities and transforms them globally into more palatable residences for the resourced middle and upper classes.  The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic also negatively impacted African Americans by accelerating gentrification as family members lost jobs, mainly in the service sectors, affecting rent and mortgage payments (Cole, 2020 & Gould, 2020).  Historically, when the US economy rebounds from a crisis, the racial gaps in income, home equity, and wealth do not shrink (Neal & McCargo, 2020).

In the United States, the result of gentrification is that some groups, such as working-class or out-of-work African Americans in Washington, DC, cannot afford to stay in their communities (Hannah-Jones, 2020).  Some may have lived in the same block for generations.  New gentrified residents provide significant initial investment and demand that government provides additional resources.  Such resources result in walkable communities with safer streets, better access to public works, improved sanitation, newly resourced schools, parks (for animals and people), restaurants/bars, and grocery stores (Rice, 2020).  Most people want these community assets, but the opportunities are not equivalent for persons of color.  Typically, they are under-resourced and of lower socioeconomic status.  In turn, the gentrified newer community members enjoy safer, more scenic, refurbished communities and increased property values.

More recent attention is now focused on homelessness from lack of employment, gentrification, and health-related community issues such as mental health and substance abuse needs that go unmet or are marginally met (KFF, 2021).  The District of Columbia Government is showing more recent examples of curtailing homelessness.  Gentrification will present more formidable challenges with the increasing numbers of homeless.

Specific to Washington, DC, based on informal focus groups and discussions among older District of Columbia residents, there is great concern that gentrification has already caused and continues to cause dramatic changes to communities in several parts of the District (Gentry conversation, 2021).  District of Columbia government representatives (including the Mayor and members of the District of Columbia Council, (the legislative body equivalent to a state legislature) have stated that they are looking harder at the gentrification of neighborhoods and ways of slowing the gentrification issues that negatively affect communities (Bowser, 2022).  However, there is a dilemma in creating the right balance of higher-income housing while maintaining or increasing affordable housing stock.

It is well known that where one lives can determine the character and availability of social resources (Tigges, 1998 & Glass, 2003).  The Multidisciplinary Gerontology Center (MGC) at Howard University School of Social Work serves as a conduit for establishing interdisciplinary scientific pursuits that enhance the understanding of gentrification and its impact on Blacks, particularly older Blacks.  The Howard University Multidisciplinary Gerontology Center (HUMGC) faculty have observed how gentrification has impacted Washingtonians.  Crewe (2017) further discusses the impact on older African Americans, their families, caregivers, and the loss and displacement of family members.   

The effects of gentrification suggest that many of whom are now older are experiencing, as are their families, mental health strains because they are economically vulnerable and culturally stressed (Versey, 2019).  Often Social Workers must network or explore ways to help clients achieve needed goals, such as housing due to gentrification, or otherwise work to meet the needs of their clients, such as working with older adults to address advocacy and group issues or broader community, organization, planning, or policy (Cox, 2017& 2020).  Between 2013 and 2015, over 26,000 Black low-income renters in Washington, DC, were spending over 50% of their income on rent (Gillette, 2020).  The role of the Social Worker continues to be one of examining the neighborhood residents before and after gentrification and looking at the relationships.  One can see where oppression has removed the communities of one group and helped promote and sustain another.  Typically, Social Workers meet the client, listen to their story and examine and assess the client's needs.  In so doing, Social Workers look for positive interaction with the client and identify and work to develop interventions that will be sustained at least long enough to help the client meet their basic needs.  Since 1995, District delinquent property tax rules have favored businesses and persons able to pay taxes over those that cannot or struggle to pay due to being under-resourced.  The District Delinquent Tax Code (Council of DC Code § 47–1301. Delinquent taxes are designed to collect tax monies.—it states "List; notice of sale; public auction.  § 47–1304.  Real property tax assignment; sale and transfers — Deposit required; certificate of sale; tax deed; redemption.

(a) The Collector of Taxes shall require from every purchaser of property sold as aforesaid a deposit sufficient, in his judgment, to guarantee a full and final settlement for such purchase.  Every purchaser other than the District of Columbia at any sale of property as aforesaid shall pay the total amount of his bid, including surplus, if any, to the Collector of Taxes within five business days after the last day of sale, and in case such payment is not made within the time specified the deposit of the person so failing to make payment shall be forfeited to the District of Columbia, and said Collector of Taxes should then issue the certificate of sale for such property to the next highest bidder, and if payment of the amount of the bid of said next highest bidder is not made within two business days thereafter, the Mayor of the District of Columbia shall set aside both sales for which the bids were made; and the said Collector of Taxes shall thereupon be held to have bid the amount due on the said lot and to have purchased it for the District."  (§ 47–1301).  Delinquent taxes, 1995, DC Code of Law (1995).

Foreclosure and Delinquent Tax auctions are another way wealth are transferred from African American families who may be house rich but cash poor (Kingsley, 2009).  African American families often cannot pay increased property taxes in Washington, DC. The District legally seize the properties, and the District then auctions the properties to the highest bidder.  The dates for the sales of these properties identified in the DC code (§ 47–1301. Delinquent taxes) are shared and publicized in the Washington Post and Washington Times as dictated in the DC code of law.  Among African Americans, there are many uninformed persons, often older individuals, who own property(ies) with a tax lien and soon to become foreclosed property.  Typically, the older owners holding the deed and their family members do not have the money to pay the taxes nor enough to retain counsel to represent them for advice, services, or potential litigation.  In the District, these persons caught in this tax delinquent process are often African Americans, and more specifically, older African Americans (Karl, 2017).  (DC Office of Tax and Revenue, 2022 & Council of DC, 2022).           

The Delinquent Tax sell-off of debt practice ensures that large parcels of property are sold, and the city receives its delinquent tax revenue more readily from a few interested parties.  Many enterprising and entrepreneurial investors benefit, along with other potential homebuyers eager to become District homeowners.  The sale of delinquent properties is called a Real Property Tax Sale hosted by the DC Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) OTR typically on or about July 19 of each year,  consistent with DC Code.  The OTR publishes the notices of delinquent properties with addresses and outstanding liabilities with clear information on the methods of payment required.  In the DC Code § 47–1301, such individual third parties and groups are willing to pay the government for tax owed and then foreclose on the delinquent tax homeowner.  Essentially, having liquid assets to pay the outstanding liability balance quickly shift ownership from poorer African Americans to more affluent Whites.  Many African American homeowners in Washington, DC, who owe delinquent taxes either, do not have money to pay the assessed tax or have ignored the tax documents or bills until the mounting fines and interest accumulate.  The District of Columbia government forecloses or enforces a lien on their property (DC Office of Tax and Revenue, 2022).    

The homeownership rate for African Americans remains the lowest among all racial groups in the United States, and the gap is widening ( HUD-PD & R Edge, 2021).  In the District there are many older African American home and apartment renters owners who are displaced when the owners sell the properties (Brown, 2019).  Black families may not have enough liquid assets such as cash needed for auction bidding, much less final payment.  As stated earlier, the average amount of liquid assets for Black families is approximately $2,100, vs. White Families is approximately $65,000 (Thompson, 2022).  Thus, the system provides an excellent opportunity for those with significant liquid assets, who can use the electronic online information to review and decide on specific properties to bid on, resulting in older African American homeowners losing their homes (Hyra, 2017).  The challenges associated with gentrification for the older African American adults have shown that there may be an enduring impact of slavery, where families have broken apart, and individuals sold, perpetuates the fear of residential displacement in more modern times.  Generational family, community, and social ties may also be affected (Hinds et al., 2018).  These challenges further contribute to the experience of financial stress and affect the older adult's overall health (Lim, 2017).  

Complications of Gentrification

Mr. Rodger Robinson, a long-time Black older Washingtonian, shared that his efforts 

to help people in the community have been greatly complicated by gentrification (Robinson, 2022).  He recalled, before the housing boom of the early 2000s, how the Crack Cocaine epidemic in Washington, DC, destroyed a generation of young Blacks.  Many people started to move out of neighborhoods or out of Washington.  He said:

"I remember them days.  You could practically move into a house for little or nothing.  The city started to board up abandoned houses, and if you could move in and help transform the neighborhood and keep the crack addicts out, you were cool."…" Those crack boys would move into a house and light a fire on the floor to keep warm in the winter, and sometimes the house would burn down."…  "Now, they (Whites) are gentrifying whole blocks.  I do not have any written proof of that, but that is what I see" (Robinson, 2022).  

The history of gentrification has shown that older and younger individuals have been displaced as wealthier groups, often with tacit or more overt approval, change communities in the District and around the US (Thurber, 2021; Crewe, 2017; Jackson, 2015).  

Shift in Communities 

The Shaw, Le Droit Park, and Bloomingdale section of NW Washington, DC, has struggled with gentrification, identity, race, and class and re-branding itself as separated and distinct.  Bloomingdale, once all white, has again sought to separate itself from Shaw – Le Droit Park seen as more Black (but changing).  Founded in the 1870s, these historic areas included cottages that housed Howard University faculty and staff and other Black working class and middle-class individuals and families.  Over time the area has changed.  Over the past three decades,  the neighborhoods have evolved from a Black two-parent household community between the post-WWII through the 1970s (Brown, 2019).  The communities have survived the brokenness of high drug and crime areas.  Many people moved out of these neighborhoods for safety reasons, leaving a mix of safe and unsafe streets.  The community banded together in the 1980s and 1990s, whereby residents gathered for evening street foot patrol duty where they would don reflective orange bands and hats to walk, observe and report during the 1980s and 1990s (Kim, 2013).  Some gentrified people question whether Howard University (founded in 1867) should move to another area so that the young white community that moved in the late 2010 – the 2020s could be more comfortable.  These three communities were part of the same area, once a rich mixture of Black culture with Howard University employees, retirees, and students with other working families.  The three areas are re-branding themselves as hip new, younger, upwardly mobile middle class predominantly white communities. 

The area property values continue to rise with a new McMillan Park adjoining the Bloomingdale section, with mixed-use, retail, housing, and recreation built to take the place of land bordering the McMillan Reservoir.  Over the years, a few older African Americans have shared their experiences.  Mr. Horace Cocroft was part of the northern and mid-western migration of Blacks who migrated from the rural South for better opportunities,  leaving Jim Crow.  Mr. Cocroft moved from rural Mississippi in the 1940s and lived much of his adult life in Washington, DC.  He worked as a US postal worker, a Federal Government accountant, and a US Department of Education manager.  Later, after retirement, he worked as a Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) volunteer coordinator.  He shared that many Black families were forced out of their homes in specific neighborhoods in Washington, DC, because of oppressive practices such as eminent domain. 

Understanding Eminent Domain 

Eminent domain has aided the oppression of African Americans who owned land across the nation.  From a legal perspective, the practice of eminent domain continues to be used by Federal, state, and local governments as an effective tool for urban planning that often involves race and class.  The relevant issues start with whether the person owning the parcel or house wants to move.  If compelled to move by law because their property is condemned with eminent domain, what will be the compensation, and the method used to compute compensation (Schill, 1988; Meidinger, 1980).  Eminent domain as a legal process includes condemning land and securing it for government purposes.  The legal government purpose has been used several times in the District of Columbia to remove Blacks from land.  The government seizes the land for the 'broader public good' (Meidinger, 1980).  For example, District lands were seized at the end of the Civil War, in 1865, in the 1920s, in 1939, 1945, 1954, 1960s, and again in the early 2000s (Card, 2018; Cooke, 2017). In the 1950s and 1960s, officials designated specific parcels of DC land for appropriation, one of the most powerful being in an area called Buzzard's Point, SW, Washington, DC (Card, 2018; Cooke, 2017).  These properties were marked for "urban renewal."  Congress used the District as its laboratory for methods of removing ‘slums’ and promoting urban renewal. More recently, in 2005, eminent domain was used to obtain the land needed to build a Major League Baseball stadium (now 41,000-seat Nationals Park).  The demolition and new construction once again ignited the issues of gentrification of the SE-SW area of Washington, DC (Nakamura, 2005).

The statutory authority and use of the eminent domain in DC are explained and codified in the Code of the District of Columbia.  The laws can be found in chapter 13, title 16, of the DC Code, beginning with § 16-1301., with the right to file a motion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.  In 1954 the Southwest DC case became part of the 1954 

US Supreme Court decision Berman v. Parker, which stated that eminent domain condemnations were constitutional.  The government authority decision was challenged by the Kelo v. New London decision (Cohen, 2005), which held or supported the earlier Berman v Parker decision and made it harder for private owners to fight eminent domain condemnations.  The point here is that the eminent domain housing law favors the government based on two prior Supreme Court decisions.  Black owners have not garnered enough support and successfully sued the US and District governments in any eminent domain cases.  There is an element of racism and classism in the government decisions.  First, the homes are identified, condemned, and land is seized.  Second, the government assumes that there will not be forceful opposition as there might be in more wealthy neighborhoods.  Third, the residents are forced to move with few affordable housing options, and little compensation is offered.  Fourth is the question ‘if there was no money available for improvements for the older community, why do they find the money for significant improvements and investments for the newer residents?’  

Urban Renewal and Restrictive Covenants

Historically, when looking at communities such as those in Southwest Washington, DC, the Urban Renewal Project of the 1950s was publicized and sold as a Congressional demonstration project showcasing what is possible with a major improvement to the District. 

The improvements included what (von Hoffman, 2008) called removing slums and replacing them with modernized health safety projects (Spellmeyer, 2020; Teaford, 2000).  The Southwest DC Urban Renewal in Washington, DC, became the model for the rest of the nation and specifically displaced Black families.  Ninety percent of low-income housing destroyed during Urban Renewal in the District was not replaced with more low-income housing (Lipsitz, 1995).  Instead, gentrification and Urban Renewal projects have been significant stressors on Black families and older African Americans because of the loss of stable wholesome housing and environment and the potential for being homeless.  In part, families were displaced with virtually no opportunity to return to the neighborhood because it took so long to complete the DC Southwest project.  The displaced Black residents had to find other permanent housing.  Few persons of color moved back into the newer community.  Whether by design or mistake, immediately before the start of the SW Urban Renewal Project, 70 percent of the earlier residents were Black.  After the completion of the Urban Renewal Project, some 20 years after its start, 70 percent of the SW residents were White (Gillette, 2020).  In Washington, DC, as a whole, in the same period, the number of White residents in the District was shrinking, as the number of Blacks increased across the city to approximately 70 percent Black (Gillette, 2020).  One may ask if the delay and re-populating change were due to systemic racism.  (King, 2022 & Feagin, 2013).  After the passage of the American Housing Act of 1949 (AHA) (Pub. L. 81–171) (Keating, 2000), the landscape of Washington, DC, changed as mortgages were harder to obtain for Black residents. Added to this was the practice of restrictive or racial covenants (Rothstien, 2017). Restrictive covenants are legal agreements put in place by builders and homeowners associations that prohibit Blacks from moving into White neighborhoods. The covenants are found all over the U.S and are still in place in many sections of Washington, DC. Whites have fought to keep Blacks out of ‘their’ communities suggesting that White neighbors were protecting their investments by prohibiting Blacks from moving in which would diminish their property values. Further, Blacks would not qualify for home ownership because of these joint local and federal regulations designed to exclude them (Rothstein, 2017 & Mapping Segregation in DC, 2022).  These policies became further entrenched in systemic racism as Real Estate Brokers and Agents acting on their own biases further promoted segregation and steered mortgages and favorable properties to Whites while denying Blacks similar opportunities (Spellmeyer, 2020; Hyra, 2017 & Rothstein, 2017).  Over time this history has repeatedly led us to another aspect of gentrification, the removal of culture and displaced residents' history.       

Gentrification and the Removal of Culture and Displaced Residents’ History        

As one group of persons moves out of a neighborhood, there is typically no formal mechanism for preserving the displaced group's culture and history.  In addition, as the community culture and community members changed, the displaced persons often lost contact with other displaced community members as they moved out at different times and to different locations.  Moving out of a neighborhood is often done without formal notice (Hyra, 2017).  Maintaining contact with moving individuals is difficult as remembrances pass unrecognized.          

Social Workers and Gentrification

The District, was and remains a federal and local seat of executive, legislative, and judicial power and serves as home to many Whites and African Americans.  Housing from the 1860s until 1968 remained segregated and unequal in Washington, DC (Murphy, 2018, & Hyra, 2017).   District communities are trending again to be more segregated and unequal.  The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, DC Humanities Council, and others with Social workers have listened to stories of people describing where they worked and went to school and the Washington, DC, housing and neighborhoods in which they lived (Richardson, 2019).  However, there have been gaps in the literature detailing whether and how Social Workers have helped combat gentrification in Washington, DC.  Residents have also spoken about the loss of Black neighborhoods and the cultural shift due to gentrification.  As older African Americans work through the trauma associated with displacement, they must address their psychic pain and perhaps anger in many cases, including the racist manner in which they were treated as part of the gentrification process (Williams, 2020).  More resourced groups of predominantly younger Whites are relocating Blacks in most quadrants of the District (Hyra, 2017, Holt, 2021 & Prince, 2016). 

Lost Opportunities

Housing for Blacks was further impacted by the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (Massey, 2015).  Although Fair Housing regulation was mandated, the wealth associated with home ownership from previous policies was skewed in favor of Whites.  In the District, Black homes are worth one-seventh, or less than fifteen percent of the average White Home (Kijakazi, 2016).  Some suggest that despite White disproportionate gains, neither they nor the government is racist (Hannah-Jones, 2021).  However, in many cases, older African Americans have seen how resource-rich differs significantly from resource-poor individuals and families (Oliver, 2013).  When one group has systematically benefited from generational wealth, added resources can make gentrification easier for the new neighbors.  Gentrified wealth can disproportionately negatively affect the group being pushed out (Jackson, 2015 & Holt, 2021). 

Systemic and Structural Racism Affects Gentrification and Government Resources

Black families have not rebounded from the housing policies that have oppressed and marginalized them, such as the FHA and VA policies and discriminatory real estate practices over many decades (Kimble, 2007). 

Locally, the lack of opportunities for improved education and employment in one racial community is contrasted with a more resourced community.  One can see how by-products of gentrification-generate Black pain (Hannah-Jones, 2021).  Gentrification can benefit neighborhoods by increasing the tax base, school resources,  property values, attracting upscale businesses, landscaping amenities, and property development (Martin, 2018 & Shaver, 2019).  City governments often incur additional costs with gentrification.  Local governments must provide more resources to these newer communities regarding city services, road improvements, public safety, anchor stores, and business and boutique stores.  However, as stated, the downside of gentrification is that the new residents bring benefits that change the neighborhood and have a disproportionately negative impact on typically less wealthy, more established homeowners and renters (often Black).  Gentrification causes the underclass, poor groups, and Blacks to relocate, often revealing that race and class are impacted by the process ( Richardson, 2019). ​

Implications for Social Workers and Understanding Practice

 There are multiple opportunities for support in gentrified/gentrifying communities.  The work begins with meeting the disenfranchised where they are.  Optimal outcomes require interventions that may be beyond the client's resources, and in this case, older African Americans and their families.  It may be beyond the immediate abilities of the social worker to work to help the client find affordable housing.  However, with advocacy and other interactions, these interventions could include housing resource specialists at housing resource centers who can help older African Americans without many financial resources.  Success may include many at the intersection of housing and other social service delivery areas.  Collaborating to address workable solutions for some of the problems of gentrification should be a priority and perhaps can re-integrate the helping tradition of Black Families within communities (Billingsley, 1986 & Martin, 1985).  It is incumbent upon the social worker to first understand the needs of the African American older adult client as they assess the environment.  These needs will require research, policy analysis, fiscal policy development, and community support.  Relocation efforts in communities have not consistently helped older adults raising grandchildren or generations of families who struggle with competition for limited housing resources.

Derek Hyra and others state that Washington, DC, has changed from Chocolate City (predominantly Black) to a Cappuccino City (predominantly White) with fewer African Americans (Hyra, 2017).  The shift to more Whites owning property and living in DC  has occurred in a relatively short period (less than ten years), mainly because of changes in socioeconomic status that are evident across racial lines.  This shift to White ownership is consistent with statistics showing that Whites earn more than Blacks and have more savings on average.  These income and economic worth disparities are not improving ( McIntosh, (2020).       

City governments do not consider poorly resourced older adults as significant stakeholders and do not often recognize poorer older African Americans as stakeholders.

 Communities and their elected leaders can do more to help the disenfranchised if they see the disenfranchised as indirect power stakeholders proxies with economic and political clout.  Achieving economic and political clout may, in part, be accomplished by social workers who can be those proxies for older African Americans and other disenfranchised groups.  From the author’s perspective Social Workers can organize people in ways that help bankers, elected officials, and finance experts understand the complexities of gentrification and potential homelessness.  The specifics of how to meet the multiple needs of vulnerable African Americans and, more specifically, older African Americans and how to care about their families are less well understood.  Such issues may include a better understanding of older African Americans' space needs, their income (most often fixed), and the opposing financial profitability of those individuals and groups generating wealth.           

Conclusion 

Racism is not new, nor is gentrification.  There is, nationally and in the District, a more significant and growing housing ownership gap between Whites and Blacks (Thompson, 2022).  The growing chasm between affordable housing and homeownership is cementing the future wealth of the District solidly with Whites. The growing gentrification phenomenon is pushing many blacks into becoming renters and some into homelessness. The District Government is just now able to intensify and address the impact of lost affordable housing for Blacks since 2000.  Gentrification has become a by-product of government actions historically linked to structural and systemic racism (Oliver, 2013 & Thompson, 2022).  It cannot be overstated that the significance of generational wealth show racial and class differences (Oliver, 2013 & Prince, 2016).                

Gentrification will continue in the District of Columbia and nationally, as home ownership is skewed towards those with resources.  The historic deprivation of housing opportunities continues to be linked to racial inequities for Blacks, particularly older Blacks in Washington, DC.  The growing gentrification phenomenon is now a national crisis.  For most families in the US, the home is their single most significant investment in generational wealth.  So, when they lose it, they receive no return on that investment (Longman, 2015).  

In short, the loss of Black ownership is directly proportional to structural and systemic racism at many levels of the federal and District of Columbia governments.  The trickle-down phenomenon of the government giving to some people while dismissing, delaying, and denying the rights and privileges of full US citizenship has hurt homeownership, generational wealth, and economic prosperity for Black Americans.  Blacks without ownership are renters or are homeless.  In such settings, they must seek family and outside support, such as the services of an agency or government support, often from Social Workers.  Blacks have been and continue to be negatively affected by the loss of generational wealth and home ownership.  There is limited fair competition in the marketplace with no remedy to these losses because one group already has significant assets. 

The issues of racism, oppression, and power remain at the forefront of gentrified Washington, DC communities.  Older Blacks share their stories with social workers of their life experiences and their efforts to overcome the emotional pain of racism that is associated with gentrification.  Overcoming gentrification and bias requires more than resilience.  Gentrification asks us whether we have a moral and ethical responsibility to do better by Black folk who have been historically maligned in many communities. Living the American Dream and living up to the ideals of the US Constitution depend on doing more to protect opportunity, equity, and equality for all.  

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Gentrification — Gentrification: Impact and Implications

Gentrification: Impact and Implications

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Introduction, impact of gentrification, implications for local residents, implications for policymakers.

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The effects of gentrification on U.S. cities

Since the 1970s, the urban development process known as gentrification has made a dramatic impact on many American cities. To some, gentrification signifies progress and neighborhood improvement; yet many longtime residents of low-income neighborhoods believe that gentrification does more harm than good. As with many modern social issues, however, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

At its core, the term gentrification generally refers to “the transformation of neighborhoods from low value to high value,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . Gentrification can occur on a small or large scale, and it can fundamentally change a city or neighborhood, and not always for the better. No matter the initial goal of gentrification, the process often results in a sizable shift of a neighborhood’s unique character, as well as the displacement of rooted residents who can no longer afford to live in the area.

Further, gentrification can affect numerous aspects of daily life, from health and safety to housing prices, property taxes, and beyond. Let’s take a look at the various side effects of gentrification in U.S. cities, and what can be done to address it in the future.

Where is Gentrification Prominent?

Interestingly, the concept of gentrification can be found throughout history. But the term itself is a more contemporary invention, generally attributed to the British sociologist Ruth Glass. In 1964, Glass observed working-class Londoners being pushed out of their homes in the wake of new construction. According to Glass, gentrification is a continual process that “goes on rapidly until all or most of the working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed.”

Few cities across the U.S. have been left out where gentrification is concerned, but particular communities have been hit harder than others. Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York City, has dealt with the side effects of gentrification for decades. A raging 1979 fire in Brooklyn’s notoriously dangerous Bushwick neighborhood spawned an almost complete rebuild, with gentrification serving as the ultimate goal.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans and much of the Gulf South in 2006, gentrification became synonymous with “recovery.” But in rebuilding parts of the historic city, much was lost: Housing prices skyrocketed, and many long-time residents lost their homes . At the same time, investors scrambled to purchase damaged properties, converting hundreds of single-family homes into short-term tourist accommodations.

Balancing Safety, Security, and Community

In both Brooklyn and New Orleans, gentrification is a racial problem as well as a social one. In fact, researchers have determined that post-Katrina gentrification has likely served to worsen racial disparity within the city of New Orleans. As of 2015, many of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods, including Bywater, the Irish Channel, and Treme, the oldest African-American neighborhood in the U.S., are now majority white.

And in Brooklyn, five separate neighborhoods saw an undeniable shift in regards to racial makeup between 2000 and 2010. Bedford, Williamsburg, and several other neighborhoods saw notable increases in white residents during that time frame and, simultaneously, a significant decrease in Black and Latino populations. Brooklyn is now considered among the most gentrified areas of New York.

Despite clear-cut evidence of resident displacement and racial inequality, proponents of gentrification often tout improved safety and lessened crime in neighborhoods that have been rebuilt. Yet studies indicate that gentrification doesn’t always correlate with greater personal safety . An analysis of 14 gentrified neighborhoods across the U.S. determined that gentrification has “no significant effect on rates of property crime” and may only marginally impact personal crime rates.

As such, rather than succumbing to gentrification, residents of low-income neighborhoods can do their part to reduce crime without the need for a heavy police presence. One of the most significant ways to make your neighborhood safer is by fostering a sense of community. Crime and suspicious activities are much easier to spot when the bulk of neighborhood residents are actively keeping watch, monitoring single-family homes and businesses alike.

The Business of Gentrification

And where businesses are concerned, gentrification has wide-reaching implications. For starters, the increased property values typically brought about by gentrification can cause undue hardship on small business owners. Businesses that were barely scraping by before a neighborhood rebuild may not be able to afford increased rent and/or cost of living.

As a result, locally owned businesses may ultimately be displaced by larger corporations that can afford higher rent costs. In areas where gentrification is rampant, small businesses are overwhelmingly shuttered in favor of chain stores and major franchises. To combat gentrification, small business owners should work to maintain their traditional models and originality to better stand out in a sea of cookie-cutter shops and restaurants.

Key Takeaways

The driving forces behind gentrification run the gamut from natural disasters to simple capitalism, or the desire to turn a profit. But despite the seemingly noble ideas behind the process, it isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem on the surface. The beautification of cities brought about by gentrification doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Indeed, the effects of gentrification are wide-reaching and come with plenty of negatives, from increased racial disparity to the displacement of long-standing residents and small, locally owned businesses.

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The changing state of gentrification, how the pandemic, racial equity commitments, and climate threats are reshaping gentrification and displacement patterns..

Intersections Housing

Activists called for a community benefits agreement during the development of the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side. Photo by 2018/Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune/TCA.

Feb. 10, 2022

By Pete Saunders

Compared to most recent presidential libraries honoring former American presidents, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has witnessed prolonged development and construction delays. The Obamas and the Obama Foundation made the conscious choice to place the presidential library on Chicago's South Side, which was instrumental in shaping the lives and values of the former president and first lady.

They settled on a site in the South Side's Woodlawn neighborhood. But despite the Obama's popularity in their hometown, there was considerable pushback from community residents who feared the institution's entry into the community. There were promises by the Obama Foundation to build an asset that would complement the community, not overwhelm it. A skeptical community, however, believed otherwise.

Why? Gentrification and displacement.

Concerns over these two forces — neighborhood revitalization and subsequent displacement of low-income residents by affluent newcomers, in this case drawn by a new community asset — led many community activists to push for a negotiated community benefits agreement between the Obama Foundation and a coalition of community residents.

When President Obama left office in January 2017, plans for the Obama Center were fully fleshed out and ready to go, but court challenges meant the project endured significant delays. Ultimately, however, the courts rejected the challenges and construction began in August 2021.

A victory for the development status quo? Not exactly. While the challenges were rejected, there's a recognition among activists that investment is necessary to see the community improvements they want, and they did make the Obama Center a better institution in the process. This may represent the next phase of how American cities deal with gentrification.

Time to revisit a critical question: Can revitalization happen without displacement? And can planners spark neighborhood growth without fundamentally altering character?

Changing patterns of gentrification

I posed these questions a couple of years ago and found examples of municipalities doing what they could to promote equitable growth. More of that is happening now as planners and local governments realize that avoiding displacement that destabilizes communities requires mindful action. But much more must be done.

First, consider that the notion of revitalization and inherent displacement is a relatively recent phenomenon in American history. For much of our history, American cities were founded, settled, grew, and expanded outward, with inward areas always being replenished by immigrants who followed the same pattern. As cities developed into metropolitan areas, the process continued. As metropolitan areas grew larger, the process expanded to newer cities and started again. Competition over land in inner portions of cities never really occurred prior to about 1970; the socioeconomic escalator that carried people from inner city neighborhoods to outlying city areas, then to the suburbs, and later to the suburban periphery was augmented by the migration to Sun Belt cities.

The push for equity has gained a renewed sense of urgency. But it's an open question as to whether our society is able — or willing — to address it.

A sweeping look at U.S. Census population counts for the 50 largest cities in 1950 and beyond bears this out. I selected the 1950 census as a starting point for several reasons. It was the first completed after the two tumultuous decades that witnessed the Great Depression and World War II, and the nation had secured its position as the world's preeminent manufacturer. Also, it took place right at the onset of two significant trends: postwar suburban expansion and the rise of southern and western cities. The nation's northeastern and midwestern cities were at or near their peak in population and prestige, but many were at the start of a precipitous decline.

Looking at census counts between 1950 and 2020 can reveal some interesting patterns. The 1950s were not particularly kind to the nation's largest cities. During the decade, 24 of the top 50 cities lost population, including 15 of the top 21. Those cities fared even worse in the 1960s, with 30 out of 50 losing population, including 17 of the top 21. But some places were finding a way to reverse the decline.

New York City was unique in that it posted a population loss between 1950 and 1960 but a population rebound between 1960 and 1970. (Technically, Richmond, Virginia, and Jacksonville, Florida, did this as well, but through expansive annexations or consolidations.) Several other cities (San Francisco; Seattle; Oakland, California; and Portland, Oregon, among others) showed population gains by the 1990 census. Even more cities (Chicago, Boston, Denver, and Atlanta, among others) grew during the 1990s, according to the 2000 census.

True enough, factors like increased immigration played a major role in city population growth at the time. But most who study cities recognize that the tectonic shift in the American economy — from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-, service-, and technology-based one — can account for much of the population growth of large cities. Particularly in many large, older cities, a growing number of people were choosing to forego a suburban lifestyle and stake a claim in urban neighborhoods.

Of course, this came at a cost. Many of the neighborhoods those early urban pioneers were drawn to were "gateway" neighborhoods: places where urban newcomers could settle cheaply, find good jobs, and get their bearings, all while saving money that would allow them to move out and move up. Homes in gateway neighborhoods became available and in demand because of broader economic trends. Those gateway neighborhoods soon became what they never had been before — less transient, more settled, and more expensive. That pattern set the stage for what we understand today as gentrification.

Three things, however, have occurred since the start of the current decade that dramatically alter the impact of this revitalization and displacement cycle. The COVID-19 pandemic; the protests in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery; and the rapid acceleration of climate change impacts have exposed fissures in our divided society. The push for equity has gained a renewed sense of urgency. But it's an open question as to whether our society is able — or willing — to address it.

Gentrification and displacement are increasing in Minneapolis (above) and St. Paul. Common concerns from residents in gentrifying neighborhoods include housing affordability, business turnover, displacement fears, and shifting racial demographics, according to a 2019 report about the Twin Cities. Photo by Harvey Winje /The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification In Minneapolis And St. Paul.

The "racial reckoning"

Minneapolis was certainly in the forefront of national debates about racial and economic inequality in 2020. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked thousands of protests around the world.

Minneapolis and nearby St. Paul have witnessed their fair share of racial inequities, and a report prepared just prior to the murder and subsequent protests highlighted underlying themes in the Twin Cities. That 2019 report , from the University of Minnesota's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, took a quantitative and qualitative approach to examining gentrification in the region.

On the quantitative side, the researchers found significant evidence of gentrification (defined broadly in the report as the upgrading of previously disinvested neighborhoods) in about a third of Minneapolis-St. Paul census tracts that were deemed vulnerable for such activity in 2000. Between 2000 and 2015, gentrifying neighborhoods saw increases in the number of residents with bachelor's degrees, surpassing citywide educational attainment trends. Yet during the same period, both gentrifying and nongentrifying neighborhoods saw a decline in median household income. How so? The researchers found higher levels of inequality in gentrifying neighborhoods, as low-income households saw their incomes decrease at a rate faster than higher-income residents' wages were rising. Rents and home prices in gentrifying neighborhoods generally grew at a rate twice that of nongentrifying areas.

The qualitative analysis, however, illustrated a recognition of the tensions that would later boil over in the aftermath of Floyd's death. While local officials were split on whether displacement was occurring because of increased investment, neighborhood leaders were firm in stating that physical and cultural displacement was disproportionately impacting people of color and people with low incomes. One critical trend identified by neighborhood leaders? The rise of overcriminalization — the expansion of laws and law enforcement activity — in Twin Cities neighborhoods. A quote from the report sums up the debate:

A long-term renter of color expressed a bit of irony as she argued that crime has always been an issue in the area that all families, irrespective of race or class, have expressed concern about over the years. However, this community stakeholder argued that a new level of attention has been given to the conversation in the last few years, signifying to this long-term resident that a new residential demographic has arrived and is using its power to influence the direction of the neighborhood's attention and resources.

This year, the role of police in cities became the proxy debate on gentrification in Minneapolis — and a referendum on gentrification perceptions. Activists who were behind the "defund the police" movement that came out of the George Floyd protests were successful in getting a measure on the ballot that would amend the city's charter to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public health-oriented Department of Public Safety. But on November 2, Minneapolis voters soundly rejected the measure — perhaps signaling a desire for incremental change from some, rather than a radical one.

Caption: Located a few miles in from the coast, Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood is being inundated by newcomers whose coastal properties are threatened by climate change-driven flooding. The shift is driving up housing prices and putting longtime residents and local businesses, like those in the Haitian Cultural Center (above), at risk of displacement. Photo courtesy of Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Climate change

Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood sits a few miles inland from the city's gleaming oceanfront condo towers. Much of Miami's growth over the last 50 years has been fueled by oceanfront development and considerable investment from the Caribbean and Latin America. Little Haiti, however, grew as a humble community of Haitian exiles.

Little Haiti does not offer the stunning ocean views that beachfront condos do. But it does offer something the beachfront does not: relative protection from frequent flooding.

Little Haiti is becoming more desirable because it rests on land that is seven to 10 feet above sea level. Oceanfront condos don't enjoy that kind of natural protection from sea level rise driven by climate change. As a result, investors are flooding into the area, driving up home prices and rents and displacing longtime residents and local businesses.

Climate change could cause much more displacement in coastal cities, particularly along the Atlantic and Gulf shores, but also in fire-plagued communities in the West. Recently built subdivisions nestled deep into forested foothills — areas known as the wildland-urban interface — are becoming the targets of recent wildfires, and many of their residents may begin looking for safer locations . Climate change is already altering how and where Americans live.

The pandemic

It's well understood that the pandemic has disproportionately impacted low-income communities, both in terms of economics and health. Working-class residents who work primarily in the service sector were expected to keep the fundamentals of our economy running, working as big-box store clerks and cashiers, workers in food processing plants, delivery drivers, and more.

These essential workers negotiated the risks of working with the public through a pandemic and were initially heaped with thanks for their role in keeping the economy afloat. Yet today, many service jobs go unfilled, as workers are reconsidering their options in the late stages (one hopes) of the pandemic.

If COVID revealed anything, it's that our nation's reliance on a low-paid service class played a key role in the development and spread of the professional class that spurs gentrification and displacement in our cities. In many ways, the service class supports the upper-middle-class lifestyle, with few opportunities for service-class members to enter the middle class. This contributes to the destabilization of neighborhoods that later become the targets for future gentrification and displacement.

Service workers would benefit from a new avenue for upward economic mobility, similar to what Ford Motor Company did in 1914 when it announced that it would more than double the pay of assembly-line workers to five dollars a day. The action validated manufacturing work as legitimate work and increased stability and productivity at the same time. Manufacturing workers were able to develop communities of their own, leading to the growth of the modern American middle class.

Could such a strategy be in the works today, as we strive to enter a post-COVID era?

Displacement by decline

Urban observers are beginning to get a better understanding of the dynamics in cities today, beginning with the notion that, nationwide, urban decline continues to spread faster than urban revitalization. More urban census tracts are sliding further into poverty than climbing out of it. Does this set the stage for future gentrification?

Consider Chicago's south lakefront. The 15-square-mile area just south of the Loop, hugging Lake Michigan, has long been known as a gateway community for Blacks coming to Chicago. Its transition from white to Black began more than a hundred years ago; there had been a small Black community beginning in the 1890s, but by 1920, Blacks constituted 32 percent of the Grand Boulevard area (one of nine designated community areas that make up the south lakefront). Just 10 years later, in 1930, Blacks made up 94 percent of the more than 87,000 people in Grand Boulevard.

There is, perhaps, a sensitivity to the negative impacts of revitalization that we haven't seen since the civil rights movement.

The stifling segregation imposed in Chicago concentrated Black residents in the south lakefront. In 1950, there were nearly 537,000 residents — 36,000 people per square mile, or 56 people per acre — and more than 80 percent of them were Black. The concentration was highest in the Grand Boulevard community, with 114,000 residents — 66,000 people per square mile, or 104 people per acre — 99 percent of whom were Black. It was a self-contained, vibrant community.

But its high density — paired with a lack of private investment in housing and commercial development, plus a lack of public investment in schools, parks, and other public services — also served as a reminder that Blacks did not enjoy the same opportunities as whites in Chicago. As new neighborhoods opened up to Black residents, the exodus began in earnest.

The south lakefront was virtually emptied. The area lost nearly 250,000 residents by 1980, falling below 290,000. Another 90,000 residents left by 2010. After six consecutive decennial cycles of population loss, the south lakefront had less than 40 percent of the residents it did at its 1950 peak.

This movement was quite different from the displacement we discuss today, but it was — and is — displacement nonetheless. Residents who could afford it left a resource-starved area for neighborhoods with more amenities and opportunities. The people who remained were the ones without the resources to do the same, accelerating a cycle of decline. And as formerly white neighborhoods become new segregated Black neighborhoods, the cycle repeats.

The 2020 census, however, illustrated a turnaround for Chicago's south lakefront. New development, largely concentrated in the Near South Side neighborhood closest to the Loop but still scattered throughout much of the area, pushed the south lakefront's population up by nearly 10 percent.

South lakefront communities have become more diverse, with white, Latinx, and Asian residents. They've also become more educated as people with college degrees move in. Importantly, the same is also true for the increasing number of Black residents who moved in. But displacement by decline, characterized by generations of neglect creating conditions of near abandonment and followed by a spark of revitalization, exacts a heavy toll on people and the cities they inhabit. It's a recognizable pattern in many cities. And at its heart, its core, is Black avoidance.

Mandela Station, a proposed mixed-use development in West Oakland, is a test case for integrating the goals of the LEEP Initiative , including transit-oriented development. The project integrates housing, commercial uses, and a Bay Area Rapid Transit station. Rendering courtesy of JRDV Urban International.

Can development become more equitable?

What if the onus to confront gentrification and displacement wasn't placed on the residents fearing change, but on the developers creating it? What if developers were incentivized to build inclusive projects in the same way they're incentivized to build environmentally sustainable ones?

That's the thrust behind the LEEP Initiative (Leadership in Engineering Equitable Participation). It represents one possible solution. It's an initiative emerging from the West Coast, a region associated with perhaps the most contentious debates on gentrification and displacement.

The Urban Land Institute's fall meeting in Chicago last October provided insight on the initiative with a presentation from two key players: Ana McPhail, PhD, executive director of the emerging nonprofit behind LEEP, and Alan Dones, the developer of two projects in Oakland, California, that are serving as test cases for LEEP principles and standards.

In a nutshell, LEEP aims to address many issues that are challenging to confront, or rarely even considered, in the development process. By integrating solutions into developments for issues like employment and career development, workforce housing and affordability, environmental justice, small-business support, ownership and wealth creation, and general physical and mental well-being, developers would be able to gain certification for inclusively developed projects in the same way LEED does for environmentally sustainable ones.

Dones's proposed Mandela Station , a mixed-use, transit-oriented development in West Oakland, embodies the goals of LEEP. Designed to serve the needs of West Oakland's current and future residents, the development plans to offer 760 residential units, 300,000 square feet of office and life sciences space, 53,000 square feet of ground-level retail, and 1.7 acres of open space — all on a 5.5-acre site.

Dones is clear about his approach to development and how he envisions equity going forward: "It is time for the built environment to embrace equality in the same way it has embraced environmental sustainability."

The bottom line? There is, perhaps, a sensitivity to the negative impacts of revitalization that we haven't seen since the civil rights movement. Local governments and institutions are more openly acknowledging those impacts and becoming more intentional about creating tools that mitigate them. On the other side, community activists are growing more informed and savvy and have learned to negotiate with development, rather than push to stop it.

So now, new questions arise: What role will planners play? And can we put what we've learned into viable solutions for cities?

Pete Saunders is a practicing urban planner and the community and economic development director of a community in suburban Chicago. He has been the editor of the urbanist blog Corner Side Yard since 2012 and is currently an urban policy columnist for Bloomberg .

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Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification Essay

Introduction, different perspectives of gentrification, reference list.

Gentrification is not a new process. Very much have been said in regard to gentrification but still, there exist some variations in its discussions. For this reason, it is a concept that has drawn a lot of attention from different directions, each party having the need to have a deeper understanding about it.

Gentrification can be defined as the process of buying and renovating of buildings/ houses located in the depreciated urban neighbourhoods by the upper and middle income individuals and families. This is aimed at improving property values although it has a negative effect of displacing the poor or the low income families and small businesses.

It could also be termed as “ the process…by which poor and working-class neighbourhoods in the inner city are refurbished by an influx of private capital and middle-class homebuyers and renters….a dramatic yet unpredicted reversal of what most twentieth-century urban theories had been predicting as the fate of the central and inner-city.” (Slater 2002). This piece of work looks at the aspect of gentrification with much emphasis being given to the different perspectives that have been brought forward in regard to gentrification.

There are various perspectives of gentrification. Gentrification has been associated with an increase in the average level of income per individual and an average decrease in family size in the society. All in all, the process of gentrification does not adhere to the principle of equality between the poor and the rich but rather tends to widen the gap between them.

For this reason, the following aspects are linked with gentrification; poor living standards of the low income earning people thus they are unable to sustain themselves, for instance, through paying increased rents and taxes. Displacement is however the main negative effect of gentrification.

A positive contribution of the process of gentrification is that it enhances economic development which in turn helps in the reduction of poverty and crime levels, increase in the prices and values of properties as well as an increase in revenues collected from tax (Atkinson and Bridge 2005).

Urban gentrification is associated with bringing about change in the nature of culture characterization. It brings about a more economically homogeneous society eliminating the character of culture heterogeneity. Over the years, the aspects linked with gentrification have significantly changed.

The changes are attributed to a variety of factors some of them being, urban consolidation that have been brought about by compact city policies, economic streamlining and state intervention in various issues for instance the development of brown field sites through the housing demand of the new middle class (Freeman 2006).

In order to understand the concept of gentrification in a better manner, it is good to look at the various perspectives or approaches that, in one way or the other, tend to bring about the origin and causes of the spread of gentrification. Some of the perspectives that I will look at include; the socio-cultural, the political and economic, the demographic and ecological, the social movements as well as community networks perspectives.

The social-cultural perspective of the process of gentrification is based on the argument that aspects like beliefs, values, attitudes, choices and opinions are most suitable in the explanation and prediction of human behaviour as opposed to populations’ characteristics such as demographics.

This approach therefore emphasizes on the changes in lifestyles and attitudes of the upper and middle class of the late 20 th century. These individuals became more urban oriented and thus avoiding the rural lifestyle. There were therefore movements into the cities as they were viewed to be more favourable. This led to formation of inner city. Criticism of this perspective is that the existing values determine people’s decisions to live as opposed to the changing values (London and Palen 1984).

The demographic and ecological perspective explains gentrification through the demographics which includes technological advances, population and social structure and the environment. This perspective focuses on the increase in the number of people of (25-35 years) towards the end of the 20 th century.

Due to the increase in population, there was a rise in the demand for housing. As a result, cities were restructured to cater for the demand. This generation was relatively different in terms of demographics, for instance, they did not get married early and they opted for few children. Women were also involved in men-related jobs. This lifestyle promoted living in the cities to be closer to job areas (Lees 2000).

The other approach of gentrification is the political-economic perspective. This is divided into traditional and Marxist views. The traditional view is based on the fact that political and economic attributes contributed greatly to the invasion of the inner-city.

Political changes led to gentrification of neighbourhoods. Another aspect that led to the invasion of cities is the insufficiency of rural land and increase in housing cost. Marxist approach tends to disagree with the traditional view. It states that interests groups became interested with the cities once they realized they would gain something from it; revenue. This led to the displacement of the poor.

Community network is the other perspective of gentrification. The community is regarded as a powerful and interactive social unit capable of initiating changes. According to London and Palen (1984), there is the community lost and community saved perspectives. The community lost point of view states that small-scale and less powerful local community is replaced with large-scale powerful societies.

The difference has been brought about by advancement in the telecommunication sector as technological advancement is witnessed. The community saved on the other hand asserts that revitalization of neighbourhoods as a result of gentrification results into an increase in community activity.

The social movements approach centres on ideologically founded movements particularly with respect to leader-follower ties. The approach argues that the individuals who are more into gentrification do that due to encouragements they get from leaders to revitalize the inner city. Those who do not support gentrification on the other hand are the poor and less powerful and hence oppose gentrification practices in an effort to gain some powers and voice (Bounds and Morris 2006).

From the above discussion, it is evident that the issue of gentrification is very wide and complex. This has led to a lot of controversy in the way the issue is discussed with some individuals and groups supporting it fully while others are against it, stating that it is disadvantageous.

There are different perspectives of gentrification each bringing about different but related ideas. The variability of the processes involved has for instance led to lack of a commonly agreed definition of gentrification. The issues involved are related to economic, social, political as well as cultural concepts.

Atkinson, R and Bridge, G. 2005. Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism . New York: Routledge

Bounds, M. and Morris, A. 2006.Second Wave Gentrification in Inner-City Sydney. Cities , Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 99–108

Freeman, L. 2006. There goes the ‘Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up . Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press

Lees, L. 2000. A Reappraisal of Gentrification: Towards’ Geography of Gentrification. Progress in Human Geography 24, 3 (2000) pp. 389–408

London, B. and Palen, J. 1984. Gentrification, Displacement, and Neighbourhood Revitalization . New York, SUNY Press

Slater, T. 2002. What is Gentrification? [Online] Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2019, November 28). Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gentrification/

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IvyPanda . (2019) 'Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification'. 28 November.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification." November 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gentrification/.

1. IvyPanda . "Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification." November 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gentrification/.

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IvyPanda . "Analysis of Different Perspectives of Gentrification." November 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gentrification/.

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21 Gentrification Pros and Cons

Gentrification is the process of improving or renovating a neighborhood, house, or district so that it conforms to a specific socioeconomic taste. Many communities attempt to gentrify areas where lower income levels are present as a way to build equity, encourage business development, and bring in people who have a higher net worth.

When you look at the process of gentrification in the United States, there is a racial component that must be considered. As Spike Lee said in 2014, “Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, Harlem, Bed Stuy, and Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? What about the people who are renting? They can’t afford it anymore!”

The socio-economic structure of the United States is one where the average Caucasian family has more money than the average minority family. When the neighborhood begins to gentrify, white people typically move there and become the majority in the neighborhood. This typically causes a shift in wealth which is seen in property values, real estate development, and business opportunities.

The disadvantages are then experienced by the families who leave these neighborhoods during this process. That is why it is essential for everyone to review these gentrification pros and cons.

List of the Pros of Gentrification

1. You will experience the atmosphere of the community begin to lift. The people who come into communities have a lot of energy thanks to the gentrification process. These are the folks who grab a cup of coffee on the way to work, film low-budget documentaries about their lives, and try to create experiences that are trendy and cool for everyone. You will find a conversation waiting for you on almost anything regarding current events in these neighborhoods.

2. It creates new options for food, retail outlets, and jobs. When the gentrification process begins, you will find that new storefronts and buildings begin to pop up all over the neighborhood. This shift in perspective can provide new options for retail opportunities, restaurants, and new hangout spots. It can even be the foundation for new jobs in a community that has been lacking them in the past. As new people begin to come into the area, you will find that the local coffee shops, boutiques, and thrift stores all start to shift their product offerings to create the potential for more revenue.

3. Gentrification can create new housing opportunities. When the processes of gentrification are emphasized for a community, then you will see buildings developers and contractors buying properties at a low price to improve them over time. This process creates a new environment for the neighborhood, which can attract wealthier buyers that shift the emphasis of the community. You will see new buildings begin to rise from the old, creating an upscale look that encourages recycling, reduces waste, and can even begin to encourage the crime rate to drop in some areas.

4. You will experience cleaner neighborhoods with gentrification. Communities become attractive to those with higher levels of wealth when there is less rubbish lying around. The process of gentrification cleans the streets of a neighborhood to ensure that there is an appropriate level of cleanliness. Everyone benefits from this process because when trash is left to lie around, that is when pests can begin to start spreading disease.

That’s not to say that poor neighborhoods are filthy. Many are cleaner than what you may find in a typical Middle-Class community. Those who have more wealth can hire better, more effective services to take the available sanitation to the next level.

5. Gentrification creates new activities and events to try. There are always new opportunities defined in areas that experience gentrification. These neighborhoods typically see an increase in the mixture of interest-centered clubs or events that are often family-friendly. There may be new literature or cycling clubs that can help you just start making new friends. It is an opportunity to try something that would normally be outside of your comfort zone. You even have the opportunity to create new projects that are 100% your own.

6. Public safety gets better thanks to the gentrification process. When people invest in a new community, they want their streets to be safer. That desire benefits everyone because it creates a higher level of legal enforcement concerning local laws, mandates, and regulations. No one wants to be robbed when they are walking home from work. The same could be said of anyone in any neighborhood at any wealth level. The gentrification process encourages new resources to come into the community that can pay for additional police, neighborhood watch programs, and advanced security systems which protect everyone there very effectively.

7. It doesn’t force the people who live in a community to move away. Many of the disadvantages that are discussed when looking at the process of gentrification involve the forced removal of households through rent increases or property values over time. A study by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve found that this is not always the case. People living in a low-income household are no more likely to move out of the neighborhood which is gentrifying then from one that is not.

That means there are some distinct advantages available to those who decide to stay. There may be more job opportunities, additional equity in home value, and even an increase in their credit score.

8. Gentrification creates growth opportunities. People go to the places where the best jobs happen to be. That’s why North Dakota saw an influx in population growth during the years of high oil prices because that was a way for them to earn a better income. Gentrification provides a similar process. In the United States, the cities with the highest rates of neighborhoods that are gentrifying see the highest levels of home equity growth, new job opportunities, and population increase. Charleston saw a 77.5% increase from 2000-2015 in their median home value, rising from $152,100 to $270,000. This process brought in better living facilities, jobs that paid higher, and encouraged people with needed skills to move into the city.

9. It can reduce suburban sprawl within a community. When communities begin to grow, there tends to be a landgrab that occurs which allows housing developments to start on vacant or underdeveloped properties. As each project begins, it stretches the boundaries of the community even further. That can eventually lead to high levels of sprawl that can become challenging to navigate for everyone. The process of gentrification reduces this issue because it encourages the current structures to improve through upgrades to support more people.

List of the Cons of Gentrification

1. It changes the cultural standards of the neighborhood. Gentrification isn’t about what new folks can do to help a neighborhood. This process brings change to everyone who already lives in the area that is being gentrified. It would be like having a grocery store selling steaks and pork chops which then starts selling quinoa and kale because someone saw that those foods were healthier. Instead of trying to continue the culture which already exists, it overrides what is already there to cultivate a new standard of normalcy.

2. Gentrification can sometimes make a community poorer. Although the process of gentrification intends to improve the economic conditions of the community, the opposite can sometimes occur. This change takes a negative form when the new members of the neighborhood have a preference for franchise stores, brand names, and overall convenience. The mom-and-pop shops that typically dominate these areas before they gentrify struggle to stay in business because they cannot compete on the same economy of scale.

You might be able to see a net job increase from this process over time, but it isn’t going to come from local business owners. The new positions will usually pay lower wages than what the mom and pop shops were earning or paying as well.

3. It raises the cost of rent when it happens. The boroughs of New York City are an excellent example of this disadvantage when gentrification occurs. The current median rent in Brooklyn is over $6000 per month. That is not an entry-level price that the average household can afford in the city. Unless their rent controls placed on the new dwellings that rise when a community is being gentrified, the families that may have lived in the area for generations are suddenly forced to find a new place to live. The newcomers are not trying to merge themselves into the existing community. They want to make it their own.

4. Gentrification replaces the people who built the community. The primary reason that gentrification becomes a disadvantage for many communities is that it typically replaces the people who built them in the first place. When these people leave, you lose the soul of the neighborhood. Although there are retail benefits to consider, along with extra job opportunities, there is a different experience provided when you replace a mom-and-pop coffee shop with a Starbucks. You are effectively replacing community landmarks with corporate branding.

5. It causes the rich to get richer, while the poor may or may not benefit. When low-income households leave their neighborhoods, it could be because they received a premium offer for their property, or could also be because their property taxes became too expensive for them due to rising land values. The community which was once close becomes scattered as they relocate. In some cases where the former resident relocated due to rising costs and taxes, they may end up with a longer commute to work or school.

6. Gentrification is a process run by the private sector. Although there are occasional gentrification processes which are sponsored by local governments, even the situations end up becoming a public-private partnership. The work of gentrifying is almost always run by the private sector. That means the only community outreach programs or low-income household growth that occurs during the process are the efforts that can lead to future profits.

Even companies that have a robust focus on social welfare programs must make a profit in the private sector to stay in business. That means neighbors are constantly changing in these neighborhoods as wealth rises, making it a challenge to hold on to the feeling that this place is a home.

7. It doesn’t offer safety benefits to everyone in the neighborhood. MIT studied the process of gentrification what it occurred in Cambridge, Massachusetts beginning in 1995. When neighborhoods were gentrified after rent-controlled housing abruptly ended that year, researchers found that there was a 16% drop in crime that offered measurable economic gains. The only problem is that most crime in Cambridge wasn’t caused by the people who lived there – which is a trend that stretches to other communities as well.

Some think that the way that crime reduction gains are achieved often comes at the expense of African-American and Latino households in the United States. They think that the stop-and-frisk policies of the NYPD are an example of this process, and that Caucasians are less often subject to this policy.

8. Gentrification creates a high turnover rate for neighborhoods. The process of gentrification creates a high turnover rate for households moving into and out of the neighborhoods in question. It is not just the families that are lower and middle-class or below in wealth that followed this trend. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve discovered that when neighborhoods gentrified in the city, it was the people with the highest credit scores, and those with the highest levels of income, that moved out more frequently and at a faster pace. They moved to the wealthier parts of the city or the suburbs. Then the households who couldn’t afford the change moved away as well.

9. It often causes low-income households to move to poorer neighborhoods. In another example of the rich becoming richer and the poor not so much, the low-income residents of a neighborhood going through gentrification will often find themselves relocating to a poorer neighborhood to find their next home. Those with higher incomes typically go to the community with a better HHI. It’s also more challenging for people with lower paychecks to move into neighborhoods experiencing gentrification in the first place.

10. Gentrification doesn’t always take the history of the community into account. Using Charleston as an example, when the city’s property values began to rise, the older buildings in the city began to be snatched up on the real estate market. Investors wanted to covert these structures into properties that could offer modern amenities for the people who would eventually move to each neighborhood. Although some restored and upgraded the historical structures to maintain their presence in the city, there were others that were torn down to make way for “something better.”

11. It can lead to higher levels of community conflict. When new arrivals (often called transplants) come into a neighborhood that is going through gentrification, the marginalization of either group can lead to higher levels of community conflict. There will always be a certain level of resentment that occurs when change happens in a community. Nothing will change that. The issue with gentrifying is that it often feeds class or racial tensions that may eventually move toward violence. That process is then used as a justification to remove the “offenders” from the community, which is almost always those with lower income levels.

12. Gentrification can sometimes happen in reverse. We often look at the gentrification process as a way for communities with low-income levels to begin receiving additional wealth. What we learned from Detroit is that this process works in reverse with great severity at times. Income levels go down dramatically when businesses leave a community. Families decide to leave after spending multiple generations in the same home because there are no more opportunities. When neighborhoods begin to experience high levels of brokenness, they start to fade from memory. That can rob it of its soul just as a higher turnover of households does.

These gentrification pros and cons must be more than a description where muggings are down in a neighborhood while coffee shops are on the rise. It should include numerous other factors, including an appreciation of our heritage and the souls of our cities.