Neighborhood Change Research Articles

Suburban Transformation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Socio-Economic Mobility and Neighbourhood Change in ‘In-Between’ Spaces

Since democratic change in 1994 South Africa’s cities have experienced major physical and social changes. Johannesburg, South Africa’s major city, has been at the leading edge of the changes occurring in the landscape of the country’s cities and therefore has generated a substantial scholarly literature. Geographical writings are concentrated mainly on the inner-cities and townships. Less research has been pursued on South Africa’s suburban spaces and particularly in what has been described as the ‘in-between’ middle-class suburban areas. The objective in this article is to investigate the dynamics of suburban transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. The case study is situated in the south of Johannesburg and centres on neighbourhood change in former ‘white’ designated suburbs. The study discloses resident motivations driving change, issues of socio-economic mobility, and the shifts occurring in the nature of residential property development in these spaces.

Tscluster: A python package for the optimal temporal clustering framework

Temporal clustering extends the conventional task of data clustering by grouping time series data according to shared temporal trends across sociospatial units, with diverse applications in the social sciences, especially urban science. The two dominant methods are as follows: Time Series Clustering (TSC), with dynamic cluster centres but static labels for each entity, and Sequence Label Analysis (SLA), with static cluster centres but dynamic labels. To implement the universe of models spanning the design space between TSC and SLA, we present tscluster, an open-source Python framework. tscluster offers: (1) several innovative techniques, such as Bounded Dynamic Clustering (BDC), that are not available in existing libraries, allowing users to set an upper bound on the number of label changes and identify the most dynamically evolving time series; (2) a user-friendly interface for applying and comparing these methods; (3) globally optimal solutions for the clustering objective by employing a mixed-integer linear programming formulation, enhancing the reproducibility and robustness of the results in contrast to existing methods based on initialization-sensitive local optimization; and (4) a suite of visualization tools for interpretability and comparison of clustering results. We present our framework using a case study of neighbourhood change in Toronto, comparing two methods available in tscluster. Supplemental materials provide an additional case study of local business development in Chicago and a detailed mathematical exposition of our framework. tscluster can be installed via PyPI (pypi.org/project/tscluster), and the source code is accessible on Github (github.com/tscluster-project/tscluster). Documentation is available online at the tscluster website (tscluster.readthedocs.io).

Neighbourhood Change, Deprivation, Peripherality, and Ageing in the Yorkshire Coalfield

Low‐income neighbourhoods in contemporary England continue to be buffeted by roiling economic inequalities and social policy absences. Long‐term residents have a unique perspective on this socio‐spatial stress. This article zooms in to examine the condition of one spatial manifestation of these broader forces: peripheral council/public housing estates in the deindustrialised North of England—in this case the ex‐coalfields of West Yorkshire. Neighbourhood conditions are seen through the eyes of residents aged between 60 and 85 years. The article explores their accounts of the local economic, social, and political changes which have interlaced their experiences of work, community, and place over six decades. It also examines how irregular regeneration projects, emergency initiatives and local organising have tried to address and ameliorate structural marginalisation in recent years, not least during the Covid pandemic. The article provides a historically contingent account of contemporary socio‐spatial stress, one that emphasises the significance of long‐term residence and feelings of not only loss and nostalgia, but hopeful and resilient attachments to place.

Examining Two-Way Dual Language Program Dispersion in the Context of Neighborhood Change, Charter School Expansion, and Enrollment Decline

Examining Two-Way Dual Language Program Dispersion in the Context of Neighborhood Change, Charter School Expansion, and Enrollment Decline

Interrelations of Social, Physical and Symbolic Space – Assessing Residents’ Spatial Perceptions of Gentrifying Neighbourhoods with Multiple Factor Analysis

ABSTRACT Adopting a Bourdieusian perspective on the trialectic relationship between symbolic, social, and physical space, we assess how perceptions, evaluations, and expectations towards one’s surroundings interrelate and are associated with social status and physical location. We analyse survey data from two German neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification, arguing that in this process, residents of different class backgrounds and with different expectations towards their residential area live side-by-side. To reconstruct residents’ symbolic space of spatial perceptions, we apply multiple factor analysis (MFA) to several sets of variables on neighbourhood perception, and relate these to residents’ location in physical space (different neighbourhoods) and social space (socio-demographics). We find that differences between neighbourhoods in levels of social cohesion and disorder are the most important dimension in symbolic space, emphasizing the crucial role of social bonds in residents’ perception of their surroundings. Expectations towards neighbourhood change, the second dimension, are strongly influenced by socio-demographic characteristics.

A Case Study of Story Mapping, Neighborhood Change, and Community Assets of Ballpark, Salt Lake City

A Case Study of Story Mapping, Neighborhood Change, and Community Assets of Ballpark, Salt Lake City

Toward obsolete housing: A complementary explanation of increasing coastal vulnerability

This paper explains the process of increasing coastal vulnerability in response to coastal flooding, from the property market viewpoint. Rooted in knowledge about housing submarket-based neighborhood change, this study adds new understandings of how housing obsolesces influence vulnerability following rapid land use changes, which are currently studied as a new exposure by many researchers. We employ six years of house sales transaction data (n = 1,029) in a spatial data-driven delineation with k-means, through which the submarket shift can be visualized. This approach addresses weaknesses in the existing methods to measure neighborhood change. We find that second-hand houses purchased by low-income people tend to cluster close together in newly formed submarkets in at-risk areas creating submarkets for western-inner city and distressed properties. Our data series also show that the geographical growth of the submarket for distressed properties is expanding, creating further blight in the submarket for western-inner city. Consequently, the submarket for distressed properties tends to transform into an area characterized by substandard housing conditions or slum living. Bearing in mind that the consequences of a flood will cover a wide range of issues, such as the future of public services, and the welfare of citizens in general, disaster risk management is fundamental to socio-economic development of a country. This study can enrich discussions around housing vulnerability and neighborhood change and support the current debate over spatial adaptation and climate change.

Interrogating narratives of urban change: disinvestment and development in two neighborhoods in Baltimore, MD

ABSTRACT Popular press and academic narratives of neighborhood change frequently conflate the experiences of different non-white populations in working-class and poor areas, presenting them as detrimental to urban development and at risk of displacement and eviction. Such narratives provide justification for uneven disinvestment and overlook the variegated ways in which urban development strategies can be exploitative. Mislabeling urban change as gentrification and grouping multiple racial/ethnic groups can lead to inappropriate policy and misaligned forms of intervention. Building on arguments within Black geographies and critical urban studies, we seek to disentangle how Black and Latine/x populations are differently positioned in urban narratives of dis/investment. Combining archival analysis with data from the US Census, we analyze two formerly redlined neighborhoods in Baltimore whose development trajectories significantly diverged. We demonstrate that inequality is not simply due to the continued effects of historical redlining, but instead part of ongoing rounds of uneven dis/investment. We expose how racial capitalism exploits racial difference between non-white groups to extract profits. By focusing on specific neighborhoods, we enrich research interrogating how racial and ethnic hierarchies relationally shape urban change, making visible the necessity of spatially-specific contingent analyses.

Chinese Restaurants and Neighborhood Change in New York City

This article analyzes the relationship between the presence of Chinese restaurants and neighborhood change in New York City. The core metric used for analysis in this article is a Chinese restaurant index, which is a transformed and scaled percentage of restaurants in a neighborhood that can be classified as Chinese. As an inexpensive and plentiful dining option, Chinese restaurants have an association with working-class neighborhoods, and neighborhood-level Chinese restaurant index decreases over time were associated with gentrification in New York City. This methodology further demonstrates the potential for the use of retail-based analysis as a supplement to conventional gentrification metrics based on demographic and real estate data.

Differentiable Voronoi Diagrams for Simulation of Cell-Based Mechanical Systems

Navigating topological transitions in cellular mechanical systems is a significant challenge for existing simulation methods. While abstract models lack predictive capabilities at the cellular level, explicit network representations struggle with topology changes, and per-cell representations are computationally too demanding for large-scale simulations. To address these challenges, we propose a novel cell-centered approach based on differentiable Voronoi diagrams. Representing each cell with a Voronoi site, our method defines shape and topology of the interface network implicitly. In this way, we substantially reduce the number of problem variables, eliminate the need for explicit contact handling, and ensure continuous geometry changes during topological transitions. Closed-form derivatives of network positions facilitate simulation with Newton-type methods for a wide range of per-cell energies. Finally, we extend our differentiable Voronoi diagrams to enable coupling with arbitrary rigid and deformable boundaries. We apply our approach to a diverse set of examples, highlighting splitting and merging of cells as well as neighborhood changes. We illustrate applications to inverse problems by matching soap foam simulations to real-world images. Comparative analysis with explicit cell models reveals that our method achieves qualitatively comparable results at significantly faster computation times.

Food for thought: unveiling urban transitions in a small US city through the lens of foodscape typologies

This paper explores whether changes to a small city’s food landscape can indicate neighbourhood change. We have adapted the conceptual framework in Roe et al. on ‘urban foodscape typologies’ to assess and categorise changes in the urban food environment. Our study focuses on the following inquiry: How can identifying different types of foodscape categories in Newburgh, NY – a small US city – assist in tracking urban trends? This study demonstrates how the Roe et al. framework can be adapted to study food landscapes in small American cities. In addition, we introduce approaches, such as mental mapping, that help identify residents’ perceptions of changes to the foodscape. By understanding the potential challenges and opportunities shifts in the foodscape can cause, small cities can implement strategies to ensure that development and revitalisation are inclusive and beneficial for all residents.

As the Neighborhood Changes So Do We: Changing with Community

ABSTRACT To truly fulfill their missions and make positive strides toward the conservation of our ocean, aquariums need to reach diverse audiences and reflect their local communities. Reaching audiences not adequately represented at our facilities takes work and time. It requires building relationships and trust. We need to understand which audiences are not represented and why, and work with them to make our aquariums more inclusive and welcoming. The Oregon Coast Aquarium's efforts to better engage our local Latino community are a work in progress. However, we have made some positive strides and our continuing work can help inform others of the inherent opportunities and struggles that are part of this process.

The Complexities of Student Housing

Student housing is a crucial contributor to urban revitalization and neighborhood change. This paper offers a framework for conceptualizing student housing, engaging the complexity of the sector, including universities, students, and local governments, and placing it within the context of urban housing markets. Amidst university budget shortfalls and enrollment expansion, a dedicated student housing industry has emerged to fill housing shortfalls. The industry has reshaped local development patterns, with developers, operators, and investors capitalizing on the demand. Drawing from diverse academic research, this paper synthesizes insights into the form, processes, and implications of student housing, examining its relationship with higher education trends, its impact on neighborhood dynamics, and the interplay of market forces and institutional priorities. Focused primarily on the North American context, the discourse lays the groundwork for a renewed understanding of the importance of student housing in university communities and the ways local policy can help shape it.

The 'Discovery' of Gentrification

This paper examines the rise of gentrification in 1970s Amsterdam, based on coverage of the Jordaan neighborhood in Het Parool and a limited number of other Dutch newspapers. Although the term was not yet common at the time, newspaper articles from the 1970s already show a critical attitude toward social change in a working-class neighborhood. Far before policymakers were talking about it, journalists identified the negative effects of gentrification, such as rising rents and a loss of neighborhood identity. The resistance and criticisms of Het Parool and original residents bear striking similarities to contemporary criticisms on gentrification, as visible in the mocking and stereotyping of gentrifiers. Interestingly, developments in American cities were used as a frame of reference for Dutch newspapers in this regard. This exploration of the initial phase of gentrification in Amsterdam shows that both residents and journalists have always viewed the process of gentrification with suspicion.

Associations of neighborhood social cohesion and changes in BMI-The Maastricht Study.

The role of the social environment can facilitate positive health outcomes through active community engagement, normalization of healthy behaviors, and stress buffering. We aim to examine the associations of neighborhood social cohesion with changes in BMI over time. A total of 7641 participants from The Maastricht Study between the ages of 40 and 75 years were analyzed. Weight and height were measured at baseline, and weight was self-reported annually up to 10 years of follow-up (median = 4.7 years). Perceived social cohesion was obtained by questionnaire. Home addresses for each participant were linked to geographic information system data from the Geoscience and Health Cohort Consortium to create neighborhood exposure variables including area level social cohesion, neighborhood walkability, and food environment within a 1000 m Euclidian buffer. Linear regression analyses were performed with BMI adjusted for socioeconomic variables. A mixed model analysis was carried out to examine changes in BMI. Living in the highest quartile area of individually perceived social cohesion was associated with lower BMI (Q4 B: -.53; 95% CI = -.79, -.28) compared to the lowest quartile. Similar findings were discovered using the area level measure (Q4 B: -.97; 95% CI = -1.29, -.65). There was no longitudinal association between social cohesion and BMI. Neighborhood social cohesion was associated with lower BMI classifying it as an obesogenic area characteristic that influences weight, independent of conventional built environment features.

Exploring ownership of change and health equity implications in neighborhood change processes: A community-led approach to enhancing just climate resilience in Everett, MA

Traditional planning processes have perpetuated the exclusion of historically marginalized communities, imposing vulnerability to climate (health) crises. We investigate how ownership of change fosters equitable climate resilience and community well-being through participatory action research. Our study highlights the detrimental effects of climate gentrification on community advocacy for climate security and health, negatively impacting well-being. We identify three key processes of ownership of change: ownership of social identity, development and decision-making processes, and knowledge. These approaches emphasize community-led solutions to counter climate health challenges and underscore the interdependence of social and environmental factors in mental health outcomes in climate-stressed communities.

Who Owns the Neighborhood? Ethnoracial Composition of Property Ownership and Neighborhood Trajectories in San Francisco

Property owners play pivotal roles in the trajectories of neighborhoods with discretion over upkeep, residential turnover, and affordability. Yet, little is known about how and why the racial composition of ownership changes over time relative to residents within a neighborhood and, in turn, how this relates to the neighborhood’s change and stability. With a self-constructed dataset of all residential transactions in San Francisco from 1990 to 2017, we consider how the ethnoracial composition of ownership differs from that of residents and how this difference relates to neighborhood change. We find that neighborhoods with more non-White residents have greater differences between the ethnoracial compositions of owners and residents, with the largest differences in neighborhoods with more Black residents. An increase in the divergence between these distributions is related to future increases in White and Asian residents and higher socioeconomic status residents and decreases in Black and Hispanic residents, illustrating that neighborhoods where owners are more ethnoracially distinct from the residents are more prone to neighborhood change and residential turnover. Our findings contribute to understandings of inequalities in property ownership and illuminate the role of ownership in neighborhood change in the contemporary city.

Development of Neighborhood Trajectories Employing Historic Redlining and the Area Deprivation Index.

The role of historic residential redlining on health inequities is intertwined with policy changes made before and after the 1930s that influence current neighborhood characteristics and shape ongoing structural racism in the United States (U.S.). We developed Neighborhood Trajectories which combine historic redlining data and the current neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics as a novel approach to studying structural racism. Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) neighborhoods for the entire U.S. were used to map the HOLC grades to the 2020 U.S. Census block group polygons based on the percentage of HOLC areas in each block group. Each block group was also assigned an Area Deprivation Index (ADI) from the Neighborhood Atlas®. To evaluate changes in neighborhoods from historic HOLC grades to present degree of deprivation, we aggregated block groups into "Neighborhood Trajectories" using historic HOLC grades and current ADI. The Neighborhood Trajectories are "Advantage Stable"; "Advantage Reduced"; "Disadvantage Reduced"; and "Disadvantage Stable." Neighborhood Trajectories were established for 13.3% (32,152) of the block groups in the U.S., encompassing 38,005,799 people. Overall, the Disadvantage-Reduced trajectory had the largest population (16,307,217 people). However, the largest percentage of non-Hispanic/Latino Black residents (34%) fell in the Advantage-Reduced trajectory, while the largest percentage of Non-Hispanic/Latino White residents (60%) fell in the Advantage-Stable trajectory. The development of the Neighborhood Trajectories affords a more nuanced mechanism to investigate dynamic processes from historic policy, socioeconomic development, and ongoing marginalization. This adaptable methodology may enable investigation of ongoing sociopolitical processes including gentrification of neighborhoods (Disadvantage-Reduced trajectory) and "White flight" (Advantage Reduced trajectory).

Using social media data to identify neighbourhood change

Using social media data to identify neighbourhood change

Unequal Spatial Consequences of Abortion Restrictions in Texas, 2021-2023.

Objectives. To demonstrate the spatially uneven effects of abortion restriction laws in Texas. Methods. We used network analysis to determine the change in distance to the nearest surgical abortion provider for 5253 Texas neighborhoods after the passing of Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8; 2021) and the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) decision. We identified associations between key measures of neighborhood socioeconomic context and change in distance to providers using multivariable linear regression models. Results. After the Dobbs decision, Texas residents experienced an average change in distance to the nearest provider of 457 miles (SD = 179). Neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage experienced the greatest increase in distance to abortion providers after SB8's passing, and neighborhoods with high levels of income inequality experienced the greatest increase in distance after the Dobbs decision. Conclusions. We document the rapidly changing abortion landscape in a highly restrictive state and show that women living in more disadvantaged and unequal areas are most affected by the increasing distance to providers. Public Health Implications. Our methods and findings will continue to be relevant in understanding the burden placed on women in areas where medical abortion has been restricted because of the Dobbs decision. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(10):1024-1033. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307652).