However, these improvements also mean higher property values and taxes, which brings “involuntary” displacements of poor and elderly residents, especially renters, and often leads to conflicts between old and new residents. To lessen the pressure toward displacements and conflicts, many neighborhood leaders, city government, and the private sector work together to maintain income and racial diversity in gentrifying neighborhoods. Most interestingly, gentrification is distinct in these places compared to large cities in a few ways. First, newcomers to small municipalities tend to be property and business owners instead of renters and employees. This is because they are usually older and more established in their careers, and the places they move to have much more affordable real estate. Ownership both protects this group from being displaced and gives them greater power to make a difference in the built environment, such as by renovating housing for an upmarket clientele and opening up new businesses that cater to their own tastes.

Study Designs and Methods

Using a case example, we hypothesize how distinct drivers of gentrification—specifically, retail gentrification, environmental gentrification, climate gentrification, studentification, tourism gentrification, and health care gentrification—may imply specific pathways toward reduced health equity. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by researchers in assessing the health impacts of gentrification. An influx of young professionals, small businesses, and trendy establishments signals rising desirability and potential economic transformation. While these changes can benefit some, they often presage challenges for existing communities. New York City has witnessed similar changes, particularly in boroughs like Brooklyn and the Bronx.

• By fighting for the expansion of access to capital through community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and minority depository institutions (MDIs), Southern Communities Initiative aims to curb the devastating impacts of gentrification in communities of color.
• However, this revival has also displaced long-standing immigrant and working-class communities, raising questions about inclusivity in urban growth.
• Though gentrification seemingly has little to no impact on health overall, within different subpopulations (especially Blacks), there was a consistent pattern of undesirable health effects.
• It was once a working-class neighborhood home to sizable Hasidic Jewish and Puerto Rican populations.

What is Gentrification?

At the time of his ethnography, Anderson (1990) speculates about the future of Northton. Respondents from Northton wonder “whether gentrifying social conditions in the Village have made them into racists of a sort”-talking about the “criminal element” that has taken root at what both Village and Northton residents refer to as “the edge” between the two neighborhoods. Old residents have become as concerned as newcomers about the crime and violence potential of local black youths” (p. 149). As suggested by theoretical examination earlier in this paper, the “antique factor” becomes much more operative in the hands of middle-class gentrifiers because of the widely regarded perception of this group’s cultural capital, including knowledge of the market, confidence in aesthetic discernment, etc. When they sell, they sell their informal share in the community that they have had a hand in shaping through their residence. The scarcity of these areas increases the cost of such property, while the actual and anticipated increase of individual purchases and of real estate activity helps set their general market value (Anderson, 1990, p. 27).

In providing analysis around displacement in the Bay Area, this study is more directive than traditional displacement risk maps. The map not only directs residents and policymakers to areas in need of intervention, but also identifies interventions that have been effective, providing an ostensible roadmap for creating economic growth in neighborhoods without displacing low-income residents. Despite its high homeownership rate compared to other US cities and a relatively stable housing market, Philadelphia has experienced intense gentrification in recent years in some areas of the city 66.

Thus, while the improvements to the park have led to the apparent much-needed environmental improvement for this neighborhood, it is possible gentrification that underprivileged residents will not be able to stay long enough to benefit from the newly renovated park. Many neighborhoods which have been unjustly impacted by histories of uneven urban development, resulting in socioeconomic and racial segregation, are now at risk for gentrification. As urban renewal projects lead to improvements in the long-neglected built environments of such neighborhoods, accompanying gentrification processes may lead to the displacement of or exclusion of underprivileged residents from benefiting from new amenities and improvements.

NEARBY TERMS

• While it revitalizes neglected areas and creates opportunities, it often does so at the expense of vulnerable communities and cultural heritage.
• From this information, the Urban Displacement Project concluded that 48 percent of Census tracts and 53 percent of low-income households lived in neighborhoods at risk of or already experiencing displacement or gentrification pressures.
• The year 1957 began the upgrading of what was to become Bay Village, and these changes were mainly attributed to new artists and gay men moving to the area.
• Yet, cities can use data on general demographic trends in order to improve the accuracy of their displacement risk assessments.
• The phenomenon has generated a great deal of attention since the 1970s in the United States and Europe.

The city first completed a tier 1 analysis that identified neighborhoods where more than 95 percent of housing units are deed restricted affordable housing. The model deemed these neighborhoods not at-risk of displacement, and removed them before beginning the tier 2 analysis, which layered the other three factors. The Department of Neighborhood Development assigned each indicator a weight based on historical correlation with displacement, layered them all in GIS, then produced a final risk score for each Census tract in the city. In order to gain a preliminary understanding of those neighborhoods in need of intervention, the i-team set out to map gentrification and assess its potential effects across Los Angeles. In 2016, the city published the Los Angeles Index of Neighborhood Change, a map that allows users to explore the degree to which zip codes in Los Angeles experienced gentrification between 2000 and 2014.

What happens to Independence Park during the government shutdown? No one seems to know

A neighborhood early warning system like this has been a dream for city planners for decades. Now, though, with the rise of big data, this dream has taken a giant step forward toward becoming a reality. As with all things big data, however, taking that step comes with both considerable promise — and peril.

Gentrification can be seen as a problem because it negatively impacts a community’s history, residents, culture, and social capital. It is a housing, economic, and health issue that displaces a group of people through urban renewal programs, typically benefiting higher-income people, as they move into affordable neighborhoods and alter that neighborhood’s dynamics. City governments and the media downplay displacement in order to encourage new investment and develop attractions for tourists and residents. Because gentrification in the form of loft living became widespread during the 1970s due to the residential conversion of manufacturing space, it is difficult to say whether gentrifiers contribute to or simply follow industrial dislocations and factory shutdowns. By the same token, gentrifiers often move into neighborhoods that have already lost residents because of property owners’ disinvestment and abandonment as well as a decline in public services. Gentrifiers are attracted not only to the “bricks-and-mortar” architectural beauty of older homes in inner-city areas, but they are also drawn in by the cultural and historical significance of place-and by their desire to restore these kinds of homes and places to a version of their former glory.

Grants and subsidies for small businesses enable them to withstand rising rents, maintaining the unique character of neighborhoods. Empowering residents to participate in urban planning decisions fosters a sense of ownership and helps align development with community needs. Gentrification is a global phenomenon, reshaping neighborhoods in cities across the world.

RESOURCES

Where government works in concert with the residents, such as in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1970s and 1980s, tensions are reduced. Where government tends to promote private investment and a laissez-faire attitude, such as on the Lower East Side of New York, conflicts with local residents may arise. Gentrification begins when a deteriorated and usually partially abandoned neighborhood for some reason appeals to housing speculators.

Additional studies are needed that yield findings which are generalizable to larger portions of the US population. While local gentrification and health studies may be most desirable for creating the tailored public health solutions, the impacts of larger (even nationwide) research investigations must not be discounted as national studies can provide a basis for federal policy mandates. And while gentrification occurs in both rural and urban areas 33, 40, 41, these studies focused solely on urban populations, bringing about additional concerns of urban-rural biases. Future research should also consider the role of geography and urbanicity in the gentrification-health association. For the purposes of study selection, we included studies that included gentrification as an exposure, not an outcome. Since there is no consensus on a definition of gentrification, we include the presence of this phenomenon and exposure as defined by the original study authors.

Gentrification

These neighborhoods may be located near downtown areas or other desirable elements, such as employment opportunities, parks and restaurants. WHYY provides trustworthy, fact-based, local news and information and world-class entertainment to everyone in our community. Add a cupcake shop, a yoga studio, a few high-rise apartment buildings and a magazine feature deeming this the next “it destination” for all the young professionals on the rise.