Gentrification has inspired considerable debate, but direct examination of its uneven evolution across time and space is rare. We address this gap by developing a conceptual framework on the social pathways of gentrification and introducing a method of systematic social observation using Google Street View to detect visible cues of neighborhood change. We argue that a durable racial hierarchy governs residential selection and, in turn, gentrifying neighborhoods. Integrating census data, police records, prior street-level observations, community surveys, proximity to amenities, and city budget data on capital investments, we find that the pace of gentrification in Chicago from 2007 to 2009 was negatively associated with the concentration of blacks and Latinos in neighborhoods that either showed signs of gentrification or were adjacent and still disinvested in 1995. Racial composition has a threshold effect, however, attenuating gentrification when the share of blacks in a neighborhood is greater than 40 percent. Consistent with theories of neighborhood stigma, we also find that collective perceptions of disorder, which are higher in poor minority neighborhoods, deter gentrification, while observed disorder does not. These results help explain the reproduction of neighborhood racial inequality amid urban transformation.
AndersonElijah. 1990. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AndersonElijah. 2012. “The Iconic Ghetto.” ANNALS of American Academy of Political and Social Science642(1):8–24.
3.
AndersonMatthew B.SternbergCarolina. 2013. “‘Non-White’ Gentrification in Chicago’s Bronzeville and Pilsen: Racial Economy and the Intraurban Contingency of Urban Redevelopment.” Urban Affairs Review49(3):435–67.
4.
AtkinsonRowland. 2004. “The Evidence on the Impact of Gentrification: New Lessons for the Urban Renaissance?” European Journal of Housing Policy4(1):107–131.
5.
BaderMichael D. M.2011. “Reassessing Residential Preferences for Redevelopment.” City and Community10(3):311–37.
6.
BeauregardRobert A.1986. “The Chaos and Complexity of Gentrification.” Pp. 35–56 in Gentrification of the City, edited by SmithN.WilliamsP.Boston: Allen & Unwin.
7.
BosticRaphael W.MartinRichard W.2003. “Black Home-Owners as a Gentrifying Force? Neighbourhood Dynamics in the Context of Minority Home-Ownership.” Urban Studies40(12):2427–49.
8.
Brown-SaracinoJaponica. 2009. A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
9.
CharlesCamille Zubrinsky. 2000. “Neighborhood Racial-Composition Preferences: Evidence from a Multiethnic Metropolis.” Social Problems47(3):379–407.
10.
CharlesCamille Zubrinsky. 2003. “The Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation.” Annual Review of Sociology29:167–207.
11.
ClarkePhilippaAilshireJenniferMelendezRobertBaderMichaelMorenoffJeffrey. 2010. “Using Google Earth to Conduct a Neighborhood Audit: Reliability of a Virtual Audit Instrument.” Health & Place16(6):1224–29.
CrowderKyleSouthScott J.2008. “Spatial Dynamics of White Flight: The Effects of Local and Extralocal Racial Conditions on Neighborhood Out-Migration.” American Sociological Review73(5):792–812.
14.
EllenIngrid Gould. 2000. Sharing America’s Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
15.
EllenIngrid GouldO’ReganKatherine. 2008. “Reversal of Fortunes? Lower-Income Urban Neighbourhoods in the US in the 1990s.” Urban Studies45(4):845–69.
16.
FreemanLance. 2005. “Displacement or Succession? Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods.” Urban Affairs Review40(4):463–91.
17.
GalsterGeorge C.QuerciaRoberto G.CortesAlvaroMalegaRon. 2003. “The Fortunes of Poor Neighborhoods.” Urban Affairs Review39(3):205–227.
18.
GuerrieriVeronicaHartleyDaniel R.HurstErik. 2013. “Endogenous Gentrification and Housing Price Dynamics.” Journal of Public Economics100:45–60.
19.
HackworthJason. 2007. The Neoliberal City: Government, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
20.
HammelDaniel J.WylyElvin K.1996. “A Model for Identifying Gentrified Areas with Census Data.” Urban Geography17(3):248–68.
21.
HamnettChris. 1991. “The Blind Men and the Elephant: The Explanation of Gentrification.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers16(2):173–89.
22.
HelmsAndrew C.2003. “Understanding Gentrification: An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Urban Housing Renovation.” Journal of Urban Economics54(3):474–98.
23.
HooverEdgar M.VernonRaymond. 1959. Anatomy of a Metropolis: The Changing Distribution of People and Jobs within the New York Metropolitan Region. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
HyraDerek S.2008. The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
25.
HyraDerek S.2012. “Conceptualizing the New Urban Renewal: Comparing the Past to the Present.” Urban Affairs Review48(4):498–527.
26.
KraseJerome. 2012. Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing.
27.
KreagerDerek A.LyonsChristopher J.HaysZachary R.2011. “Urban Revitalization and Seattle Crime, 1982−2000.” Social Problems58(4):615–39.
28.
KrysanMariaBaderMichael. 2007. “Perceiving the Metropolis: Seeing the City through a Prism of Race.” Social Forces86(2):699–733.
29.
KrysanMariaCouperMick P.FarleyReynoldsFormanTyrone A.2009. “Does Race Matter in Neighborhood Preferences? Results from a Video Experiment.” American Journal of Sociology115(2):527–59.
30.
LaskaShirley B.SeamanJerrol M.McSeveneyDennis R.1982. “Inner-City Reinvestment: Neighborhood Characteristics and Spatial Patterns over Time.” Urban Studies19(2):155–65.
31.
LeesLorettaLeyDavid. 2008. “Introduction to Special Issue on Gentrification and Public Policy.” Urban Studies45(12):2379–84.
32.
LewisValerie A.EmersonMichael O.KlinebergStephen L.2011. “Who We’ll Live With: Neighborhood Racial Composition Preferences of Whites, Blacks, and Latinos.” Social Forces89(4):1385–1407.
33.
LeyDavid. 1986. “Alternative Explanations for Inner-City Gentrification: A Canadian Assessment.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers76(4):521–35.
34.
LeyDavid. 1996. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. New York: Oxford University Press.
35.
LloydRichard D.2005. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post-Industrial City. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
36.
MasseyDouglas S.DentonNancy A.1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
OdgersCandice L.CaspiAvshalomBatesChristopher J.SampsonRobert J.MoffittTerri E.2012. “Systematic Social Observation of Children’s Neighborhoods Using Google Street View: A Reliable and Cost Effective Method.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry53(10):1009–17.
38.
OwensAnn. 2012. “Neighborhoods on the Rise: A Typology of Neighborhoods Experiencing Socioeconomic Ascent.” City and Community11(4):345–69.
39.
PapachristosAndrew V.SmithChris M.SchererMary L.FugieroMelissa A.2011. “More Coffee, Less Crime? The Relationship between Gentrification and Neighborhood Crime Rates in Chicago, 1991 to 2005.” City & Community10(3):215–40.
40.
PattilloMary E.2007. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
41.
QuastelNoah. 2009. “Political Ecologies of Gentrification.” Urban Geography30(7):694–725.
42.
QuillianLincolnPagerDevah. 2001. “Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime.” American Journal of Sociology107(3):717–67.
43.
RaudenbushStephen W.SampsonRobert J.1999. “Ecometrics: Toward a Science of Assessing Ecological Settings, with Application to the Systematic Social Observation of Neighborhoods.” Sociological Methodology29(1):1–41.
44.
RundleAndrew G.BaderMichael D. M.RichardsCatherine A.NeckermanKathryn M.TeitlerJulien O.2011. “Using Google Street View to Audit Neighborhood Environments.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine40(1):94–100.
45.
SampsonRobert J.2012. Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
46.
SampsonRobert J.RaudenbushStephen W.1999. “Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods.” American Journal of Sociology105(3):603–651.
47.
SampsonRobert J.RaudenbushStephen W.2004. “Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of ‘Broken Windows.’” Social Psychology Quarterly67(4):319–42.
48.
SchellingThomas. 1971. “Dynamic Models of Segregation.” Journal of Mathematical Sociology1(2):143–86.
49.
SharkeyPatrick. 2013. Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Towards Racial Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
50.
SmithNeil. 1982. “Gentrification and Uneven Development.” Economic Geography58(2):139–55.
51.
SmithNeil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York: Routledge.
52.
SmithNeil. 1998. “Gentrification.” Pp. 198–99 in The Encyclopedia of Housing, edited by VlietW.v. London: Taylor and Francis.
53.
SmithNeilWilliamsPeter. 1986. “Alternatives to Orthodoxy: An Invitation to Debate.” Pp. 1–3 in Gentrification of the City, edited by SmithN.WilliamsP.Boston: Allen and Unwin.
54.
TaubRichard P.TaylorD. GarthDunhamJan D.1984. Paths of Neighborhood Change: Race and Crime in Urban America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
55.
VigdorJacob L.2002. “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor?” Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs3:133–82.
56.
WacquantLoïc. 2008. “Relocating Gentrification: The Working Class, Science and the State in Recent Urban Research.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research32(1):198–205.
57.
WylyElvin K.HammelDaniel J.1998. “Modeling the Context and Contingency of Gentrification.” Journal of Urban Affairs20(3):303–326.
58.
WylyElvin K.HammelDaniel J.1999. “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification.” Housing Policy Debate10(4):711–71.
59.
ZukinSharon. 1987. “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core.” Annual Review of Sociology13:129–47.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
