Gentrification is a process of urban change that has wide-ranging social and political impacts, but previous studies provide divergent findings. Does gentrification leave residents feeling alienated, or does it bolster neighborhood social satisfaction? Politically, does urban change mobilize residents, or leave them disengaged? I assess a national, cross-sectional sample of about 17,500 respondents in lower-income urban neighborhoods, and use a structural equation modeling approach to model six latent variables pertaining to local social environment and political participation. Amongst the full sample, gentrification has a positive association with all six factors. However, this relationship depends upon respondents' level of income, length of residency, and racial identity. White residents and those with shorter length of residency report higher levels of social cohesion as gentrification increases, but there is no such association amongst racial minority groups and longer-term residents. This finding aligns with a perspective on gentrification as a racialized process, and demonstrates that gentrification-related amenities primarily serve the interests of white residents and newcomers. All groups, however, are more likely to participate in neighborhood politics as gentrification increases, drawing attention to the agency of local residents as they attempt to influence processes of urban change.
-
When and Why Does Nonresponse Occur? Comparing the Determinants of Initial Unit Nonresponse and Panel Attrition
September 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-44
Though unit nonresponse threatens data quality in both cross-sectional and panel surveys, little is understood about how initial nonresponse and later panel attrition may be theoretically or empirically distinct phenomena. This study advances current knowledge of the determinants of both unit nonresponse and panel attrition within the context of the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panel survey, which I link with high-quality federal administrative records, paradata, and geographic data. By exploiting the SIPP's interpenetrated sampling design and relying on cross-classified random effects modeling, this study quantifies the relative effects of sample household, interviewer, and place characteristics on baseline nonresponse and later attrition, addressing a critical gap in the literature. Given the reliance on successful record linkages between survey sample households and federal administrative data in the nonresponse research, this study also undertakes an explicitly spatial analysis of the place-based characteristics associated with successful record linkages in the U.S.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Neighborhood Income and Material Hardship in the United States
January 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-01
U.S. households face a number of economic challenges that affect their well-being. In this analysis we focus on the extent to which neighborhood economic conditions contribute to hardship. Specifically, using data from the 2008 and 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation panel surveys and logistic regression, we analyze the extent to which neighborhoods income levels affect the likelihood of experiencing seven types of hardships, including trouble paying bills, medical need, food insecurity, housing hardship, ownership of basic consumer durables, neighborhood problems, and fear of crime. We find strong bivariate relationships between neighborhood income and all hardships, but for most hardships these are explained by other household characteristics, such as household income and education. However, neighborhood income retains a strong association with two hardships in particular even when controlling for a variety of other household characteristics: neighborhood conditions (such as the presence of trash and litter) and fear of crime. Our study highlights the importance of examining multiple measures when assessing well-being, and our findings are consistent with the notion that collective socialization and community-level structural features affect the likelihood that households experience deleterious neighborhood conditions and a fear of crime.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Changes in Neighborhood Inequality, 2000-2010
March 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-18
Recent work has suggested that higher income inequality may be a desirable attribute of a neighborhood in that it represents diversity, even though high (and rising) inequality appears to be detrimental to the nation as a whole. The research reported here has determined the key characteristics of a census tract that are associated with the level of inequality in 2000 or 2010, and those associated with changes in income inequality between 2000 and 2010. For the change, the strongest influence is a negative effect for the level of income inequality in 2000; that is, higher income inequality in 2000 leads to a decline over the decade, ceteris paribus. Neighborhoods with higher proportions or levels of the following population and housing characteristics tend to have both higher income inequality and a larger increase in income inequality between 2000 and 2010: individuals in poverty, those with a bachelor's degree, older individuals, householders living alone, and median rent, and lower median housing value and household income. Among these, perhaps the most important determinant is the percent in poverty in 2000. Furthermore, as the baseline level of demographic and economic diversity increases, the better the baseline and change characteristics explain the change in the Gini index from 2000 to 2010.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Who Gentrifies Low Income Neighborhoods?
January 2008
Working Paper Number:
CES-08-02
This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long- Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990's. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
In-migration and Dilution of Community Social Capital
June 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-32
Consistent with predictions from the literature, we find that higher levels of in-migration dilute multiple dimensions of a community's level of social capital. The analysis employs a 2SLS
methodology to account for potential endogeneity of migration.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Metropolitan Segregation: No Breakthrough in Sight
May 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-14
The 2020 Census offers new information on changes in residential segregation in metropolitan regions across the country as they continue to become more diverse. We take a long view, assessing trends since 1980 and extrapolating to the future. These new data mostly reinforce patterns that were observed a decade ago: high but slowly declining black-white segregation, and less intense but hardly changing segregation of Hispanics and Asians from whites. Enough time has passed since the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s to draw this conclusion: segregation will continue to divide Americans well into the 21st Century.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Black Pioneers, Intermetropolitan Movers, and Housing Desegregation
March 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-23
In this project, we examine the mobility choices of black households between 1960 and 2000. We use household-level Decennial Census data geocoded down to the census tract level. Our results indicate that, for black households, one's status as an intermetropolitan migrant ' especially from an urban area outside the South ' is a powerful predictor of pioneering into a white neighborhood. Moreover, and perhaps even more importantly, the ratio of these intermetropolitan black arrivals to the incumbent metropolitan black population is a powerful predictor of whether a metropolitan area experiences substantial declines in housing segregation.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
WHITE-LATINO RESIDENTIAL ATTAINMENTS AND SEGREGATION
IN SIX CITIES: ASSESSING THE ROLE OF MICRO-LEVEL FACTORS
January 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-51
This study examines the residential outcomes of Latinos in major metropolitan areas using new methods to connect micro-level analyses of residential attainments to overall patterns of segregation in the metropolitan area. Drawing on new formulations of standard measures of evenness, we conduct micro-level multivariate analyses using the restricted-use census microdata files to predict segregation-relevant neighborhood outcomes for individuals by race. We term the dependent variables segregation-relevant neighborhood outcomes because the differences in average outcomes for each group on these variables determine the values of the aggregate measures of evenness. This approach allows me to use standardization and components analysis to quantitatively assess the separate contributions that differences in social characteristics and differences in rates of return make towards determining the overall disparity in residential outcomes ' that is, the level of segregation ' between Whites and Latinos. Based on our micro-level residential attainment analyses we find that for Latinos, acculturation and gains in socioeconomic status are associated with greater residential contact with Whites, in agreement with spatial assimilation theory, which promotes lower segregation. However, our standardization and components analyses reveals that a substantial portion of White-Latino disparities in residential contact with Whites can be attributed to differences in rates of return; that is White-Latino differences in the ability to translate acculturation and gains in socioeconomic status into more residential contact with Whites. This is further elaborated upon by assessing the changes in contact with Whites for Whites and Latinos after manipulating single variables while holding all others constant. This can be interpreted as the role of discrimination which is emphasized by place stratification theory. Therefore we conclude that while members of minority groups make gains in residential outcomes that reduce segregation by attaining parity with Whites on social characteristics as spatial assimilation theory would predict, a substantial disparity will persist as Latinos cannot translate those gains into greater contact with Whites at the rate that Whites can. At the aggregate level of analysis, this means that White-Latino segregation remains substantial even when groups are equalized on social and economic characteristics.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Factors that Influence Change in Hispanic Identification: Evidence from Linked Decennial Census and American Community Survey Data
October 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-45
This study explores patterns of ethnic boundary crossing as evidenced by changes in Hispanic origin responses across decennial census and survey data. We identify socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic factors associated with Hispanic response change. In addition, we assess whether changes in the Hispanic origin question between the 2000 and 2010 censuses influenced changes in Hispanic reporting. We use a unique large dataset that links a person's unedited responses to the Hispanic origin question across Census 2000, the 2010 Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey five-year file. We find that most of the individuals in the sample identified consistently as Hispanic regardless of changes in the wording of the Hispanic origin question. Individuals who changed in or out of a Hispanic identification, as well as those who consistently identified as non-Hispanic (of Hispanic ancestry), differed in socioeconomic and cultural characteristics from individuals who consistently reported as Hispanic. The likelihood of changing their Hispanic origin response is higher among U.S.-born individuals, those reporting mixed Hispanic and non-Hispanic ancestries, those who speak only English at home, and those who live in tracts that are predominantly non-Hispanic. Racial identification and detailed Hispanic background also influence changes in Hispanic origin responses. Finally, changes in mode and relationship to the reference person in the household are associated with changes in Hispanic origin responses, suggesting that data collection elements also can influence Hispanic origin response change.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Individual Social Capital and Migration
March 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-14
This paper determines how individual, relative to community social capital affects individual migration decisions. We make use of non-public data from the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey to predict multi-dimensional social capital for observations in the Current Population Survey. We find evidence that individuals are much less likely to have moved to a community with average social capital levels lower than their own and that higher levels of community social capital act as positive pull-factor amenities. The importance of that amenity differs across urban/rural locations. We also confirm that higher individual social capital is a negative predictor of migration.
View Full
Paper PDF