Shifting and Persisting Neighborhood Hierarchies: Immigrant Influx and the Gentrification of Black Neighborhoods in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

In recent decades, U.S. cities have experienced an increasing prevalence of gentrification, especially in Black urban neighborhoods, and the growth and dispersal of new immigrants. Although scholarship suggests links between immigrant settlement and gentrification, few quantitative studies examine this relationship and consider differences across neighborhood ethnoracial contexts and city-level contexts of immigrant reception. This study draws on U.S. Census and American Community Survey data from 1990 to 2019 to examine this relationship across the United States. We find that higher shares of recent immigrants lower the likelihood that neighborhoods gentrify, except in Black neighborhoods. In Black neighborhoods, the share of recent immigrants is positively associated with gentrification, particularly since the 2000s and in newer immigrant destination cities. Findings suggest that new immigrants serve as pioneers of gentrification and buffers in Black neighborhoods but that this pathway is contingent on the broader context of immigrant reception.