Cityscape Examines Gentrification

December 20, 2016  

Cityscape Examines Gentrification

The latest issue of Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, features a symposium on gentrification, a debate on the impacts of driverless cars, refereed papers on housing vouchers and affordable housing development by for-profit entities, and a variety of shorter departments.

In the symposium on gentrification and its implications, guest editors Ingrid Gould Ellen and Lei Ding provide evidence of the accelerating pace of gentrification and the consequential displacement of low- and moderate-income households from neighborhoods previously accessible to them. Gould Ellen and Ding summarize the symposium articles, discussing the themes of how many complex factors influence neighborhood change and the extent to which policy can mitigate its negative outcomes.

Jackelyn Hwang and Jeffrey Lin review recent research and find that gentrification has accelerated since 2000, likely due in part to the changing location of jobs and amenities, with high-skilled jobs moving into urban centers as low-skilled jobs suburbanize.

Lei Ding and Jackelyn Hwang examine the economic impact of gentrification in Philadelphia. Their analysis indicates that the financial health of lower-income individuals who remain in gentrifying neighborhoods improves, albeit unevenly, while the financial health of individuals unable to remain declines.

Rachel Meltzer uses data from New York City to examine the impact of gentrification on local businesses. She finds that most businesses are not displaced when their neighborhood gentrifies but that when displacement occurs, the site is likely to sit vacant for longer and to eventually be occupied by a chain business. She also finds that gentrifying neighborhoods attract more new services than non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

Samuel Dastrup and Ingrid Gould Ellen analyze the impact of gentrification on public housing developments. They find that in New York City, public housing in the vicinity of gentrifying neighborhoods experiences lower crime rates, higher employment and incomes, and better education prospects and outcomes. They suggest that public housing may present one means of preventing the displacement of low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Karen Chapple and Miriam Zuk provide a qualitative analysis of the reliability, impact, and use of early warning systems to predict neighborhood change. They find that although these systems have been used by communities and policymakers for various purposes, the models they survey are unlikely to survive without adoption by institutions such as city governments or private entities.

Jeffrey Lubell proposes a housing policy framework for local governments seeking to retain the positive aspects of gentrification while avoiding the displacement of low- and moderate-income households. Lubell suggests six vital components, addressed by a coordinated partnership of local government and non-government actors.

The symposium concludes with commentary from Katherine M. O’Regan, who considers the potential of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule to serve as the primary policy lever by which the federal government can address gentrification; Lance M. Freeman, who discusses how the symposium research relates to earlier research on gentrification; and Derek Hyra, who suggests additional lines of inquiry and discusses possible avenues to increase the beneficial effects of gentrification while mitigating negative outcomes.

This issue’s “Point of Contention” explores the proposition that in the future, the widespread use of driverless cars will change the landscape of the American city, allowing much of the land and capital currently used for automobile infrastructure to instead be devoted to housing and other uses. Brandon Fuller discusses several structural and environmental implications of widespread autonomous automobile use. Lisa Schweitzer argues that a future landscape including self-driving cars will be determined entirely by the decisions made by citizens and governments about how to deploy such technology. Gilles Duranton examines possible trajectories of the transition to autonomous vehicles, and the implications for cities both existing and yet to be built. Wendell Cox imagines how the current level of automation might evolve into complete automation, and what factors might affect a future society’s use of self-driving cars.

The new issue features two refereed papers: Alex Schwartz, Kirk McClure, and Lydia B. Taghavi’s analysis of the potential for housing choice vouchers to allow families to live in neighborhoods with low levels of distress, and Rachel G. Bratt and Irene Lew’s literature review on the development of affordable rental housing in the for-profit sector.

Articles in this issue’s regularly appearing departments include “Chicago Multifamily Market Characterization: Developing a Comprehensive Picture of the Multifamily Housing Landscape,” by Rachel Scheu and Margaret Garascia, in Data Shop; “Clean Heat: A Technical Response to a Policy Innovation,” by Diana Hernández, in Industrial Revolution; “A Rocky Path to Homeownership: Why Germany Eliminated Large-Scale Subsidies for Homeowners,” by Alexander Reisenbichler, and “Housing Policies in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States: Lessons Learned,” by Christian A.L. Hilber and Olivier Schöni, in Foreign Exchange; “Sensitivity of Treatment on Treated Effects in the Housing Vouchers Welfare Experiment to Alternative Measures of Compliance,” by Daniel Gubits and Mark Shroder, in Evaluation Tradecraft; and “2016 Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design and Planning Competition: Monteria Village, Santa Barbara, California,” by Regina Gray, in Affordable Design.

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