Gentrification and Racial Transformation in One Neighborhood in the City of Cincinnati during the Great Recession

Abstract

This article examines the process of gentrification and racial transition in one neighborhood in Cincinnati between 2000 and 2016. Madisonville (Tract 55) was defined as a racially integrated middle-class neighborhood in the 1970s. In the early 2000s, substantial private and public investments in the neighborhood initiated the process of gentrification and an in-migration of wealthier (mostly white) residents. This revitalization of Madisonville coincided with the Great Recession of 2008 and with a massive exodus of the middle-class African American population. Median housing values and median rent in Madisonville increased significantly between 2010 and 2016, indicating that cost of living had become too expensive for a percentage of the population. In 2000, the white and African American population in Tract 55 had comparable median household incomes, but by 2016, white median household income was 3.5 times that of African Americans, suggesting that two separate and unequal housing markets had emerged. Using Google Street View and a gentrification index designed by Hwang (2015), this article undertakes documentation of the process of gentrification between 2009 and 2016 to visually support that gentrification occurred in the built environment after the Great Recession.