In light of this week's "Poll of the Week" question, "Will gentrification be good or bad for River East?", I am going to be posting articles on gentrification. I am going to post articles on both sides of the gentrification debate.
Published: June 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM
PITTSBURGH, June 30 (UPI) -- The authors of a study on gentrification in U.S. cities say its supposed ill effects on low-income urban neighborhood residents are exaggerated.
The study by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh and Duke University found that when white, college-educated residents move into low-income neighborhoods, the resulting economic benefits did not all accrue to the newcomers as is usually assumed. Instead, black householders with high-school degrees accounted for a plurality of the total income gains in such neighborhoods, Time Magazine reported Monday.
"We're not saying there aren't communities where displacement isn't happening," Randall Walsh, an associate professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, told the magazine. "But in general, across all neighborhoods in the urbanized parts of the U.S., it looks like gentrification is a pretty good thing."
The study, which examined Census data from more than 15,000 neighborhoods across the United States in 1990 and 2000, found that low-income, non-white households did not disproportionately leave gentrifying areas. Instead, it found that while the white newcomers accounted for 20 percent of the total income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods, black householders with at least high school educations accounted for 33 percent of the income gains.
Go HERE to read the original article.
3 Comments:
So what about the Black households with less than a high school diploma?
Mnnn, you know what? Some people probably luck out, but gentrification in D.C. and NYC is so much faster here b/c the city economies are strong and real estate is limited. Ten years ago my friends were the tip of gentrification in some neighborhoods, dealing w/ gunshots all night long. Five years later, they were priced way out (and this is as they graduated college.)
Some people may be able to hold onto theirs and fare better economically overall, but these neighborhoods change so fast that there is not much "neighbor" left in the equation. Its more visible in NYC where people flood neighborhoods b/c they're attracted to the funky bohemian scene, and in half a decade, they ended up helping to price out the very people/neighbors that attracted them. You get a Starbucks instead of a grocery/butcher/cafe. When the economic winds shift, there wont be any roots to hold the neighborhood together. The recent renters will scatter and the new & chain retailers will bail.
@Thom. Good question. I will try and find the study referenced in the article.
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