Transit-Induced Gentrification: Who Will Stay, and Who Will Go?

Abstract

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been promoted by planners and policy advocates as a solution to a variety of urban problems, including automobile traffic congestion, air pollution, and urban poverty. Since the enhanced accessibility offered by transit proximity is often capitalized into land and housing prices, many express concern that new transit investments will result in the displacement of the low-income populations likely to benefit most from transit access, a phenomenon which we term transit-induced gentrification. Whereas policy advocates have proposed a variety of interventions designed to ensure that affordable housing for low-income households is produced and preserved in areas proximate to transit stations, little is known about the effectiveness of these policy proposals. This article relies on an integrated land use/transportation model to analyze how TOD-based affordable housing policies influence the intraurban location of low-income households. We find that affordability restrictions targeted to new dwellings constructed in TODs are effective tools for promoting housing affordability and improving low-income households’ access to transit while simultaneously reducing the extent of transit-induced gentrification.