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http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01j9602369c| Title: | Gentrification and Disinvestment 2020 |
| Contributors: | Richardson, Jason Mitchell, Bruce Edlebi, Jad |
| Keywords: | Gentrification—United States Discrimination in housing—United States Segregation—United States |
| Issue Date: | Jun-2020 |
| Publisher: | National Community Reinvestment Coalition |
| Place of Publication: | Washington, D.C. |
| Description: | COVID-19 exposed deep economic and social fault lines nationwide, with profound implications for how we attract investment to our poorest communities and the impact that investment has on low- and moderate-income (LMI) and minority populations. The pandemic also made clear what was already going on before it: While a small number of cities were booming, most were not. NCRC’s 2019 report on gentrification and cultural displacement identified a small group of boomtowns that experienced large scale gentrification and notable displacement of longtime minority communities. But they were rare. Most cities and towns were struggling. Their problem was stagnation and disinvestment, not gentrification or displacement. Most LMI communities in most places remained mired in poverty and lacked critical investment. Widespread protests in 2020 against systemic racism and police brutality erupted in a nation that was already suffering not only from a pandemic but also from the brutality of chronic poverty and economic distress. COVID-19 struck a nation that was already mostly struggling. Recovery in most places will be even more challenging than in those where investment was already concentrated. Unless we act now. In this follow-up report, covering data from 2012 through 2017, NCRC once again found that gentrification and displacement was highly concentrated, and that most low-income neighborhoods, and the vast majority of cities, continued to deal with a chronic lack of investment. San Francisco, California, took the title of most intensely gentrified city in America during 2013-2017, followed by Denver, Colorado, and Boston, Massachusetts. They had the largest share of their vulnerable neighborhoods that gentrified during that time period. Washington, D.C., ranked No. 1 in the 2019 report, dropped to No. 13. Gentrification and displacement continued there, but it surged elsewhere. In this report, we also took a closer look at Opportunity Zones. Since their debut in 2018, Opportunity Zones raised fears that they might exacerbate gentrification and the displacement of LMI and minority communities. The role that Opportunity Zones will play in neighborhood development, gentrification and displacement is not well understood, and no real data is yet collected on investments in the Opportunity Funds that drive this process. For the most part, OZs were indeed the places in the most dire need of investment. Economic inequality was higher, home values and incomes lower and fewer families owned their homes than in any other part of the city. Despite the fact that 69% of gentrified neighborhoods were either in or adjacent to an OZ, the majority of Opportunity Zones were in fact those places that needed the most help. In the 921 cities that saw very little gentrification in this report, all LMI neighborhoods were struggling, but the Opportunity Zones were usually the worst off. There was a stark racial divide in these communities as well, with gentrifying neighborhoods overwhelmingly populated by people of color. The average minority population of the neighborhoods included in this study was 50%, but that figure rose to 77% in areas we determined to have gentrified. Homeownership in both gentrifying neighborhoods and OZs was significantly lower than in the rest of these cities as well. Often, the people who lived there, overwhelmingly people of color, were not benefiting from the investment that flowed there. As the Philadelphia Federal Reserve found, renters are more vulnerable to displacement as their communities gentrify, and unlike owners, they reap none of the rewards that rising home prices and rents can bestow. NCRC once again found that gentrification remains a significant threat to minority and LMI families in some of the largest and most prosperous parts of the country. These cities are home to over 14% of all Americans. In these cities, Opportunity Zones overlap gentrification to a high degree. Throughout the rest of the country the narrative changes a great deal, with disinvestment more common throughout nearly all LMI neighborhoods. High levels of inequality as well as low home values and incomes prevented many families from building wealth at all. Here Opportunity Zones highlighted the neighborhoods that have the greatest need. This study reinforces the need for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and its modernization and expansion to adapt to the realties of chronic disinvestment and poverty across most of the nation. CRA is important for driving investment to lower-income communities and families, a fact that persists despite the appearance of substantial gentrification in some of the largest cities we looked at. Chronic disinvestment in lower-income communities will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. In those communities where gentrification existed, the ability for residents to resist displacement will be harder, and in most of the country it will become even harder to attract investment at all. The data underscores the need for a more equitable system and policies that help more communities attract investment without displacing the families that live there. |
| URI: | http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01j9602369c |
| Related resource: | https://ncrc.org/gentrification20/ |
| Appears in Collections: | Monographic reports and papers (Publicly Accessible) |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gentrification-and-Opportunity-Zones-2020-v9.pdf | 2.43 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Download |
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