Shelter-in-Place: Reducing Displacement and Increasing Inclusion in Gentrifying Neighborhoods

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In the past few decades, across the United States, middle- and upper-class whites have been returning to those they abandoned in the 1970’s, attracting renewed investment from public and private actors to once-disinvested neighborhoods. Meanwhile, lower-income communities of color who remained in those now-gentrifying neighborhoods are often excluded from the benefits of new development. This paper examines the mechanics of gentrification and its effects on low-income community members, considers the prospect that it could advance integration, and aims to provide guidance on how governments should respond to gentrification pressures in order to protect low-income communities from displacement and immobility. It provides two case studies—Detroit and Los Angeles—which incorporate the perspectives of community members, developers, local officials, and other stakeholders as shared with the author in a series of interviews. The case studies layer additional texture on top of quantitative research, providing a frame through which to understand how gentrification operates in particular contexts and how policy responses should be tailored accordingly.