The Ripples of Gentrification: How Demographic Change in City Centers Shapes Inequality in Suburban Schools

• In Event: Advancing New Directions in School Gentrification Research Centered on Righting, Remedy, and Repair

Abstract

Demographic inversion has been a powerful trend reshaping metropolitan areas. City neighborhoods have seen influxes of more affluent, mostly white, populations while Black, Latinx, and/or Asian people increasingly choose to live in suburbs (Ehrenhalt, 2012; Frey, 2018). In fact, suburbs across the country have experienced unprecedented increases in racial and ethnic diversity in recent years- with a majority of Black people who live in metropolitan areas now residing in metropolitan suburbs (Lichter et al. 2023). Demographic inversion as a construct is especially poignant for studies about demographic change and educational inequality because it forces us to interrogate how the movement of Families of Color to the suburbs is related to trends like gentrification in cities and keeps that question at the center of inquiry. Demographic inversion highlights the inextricable link between gentrifying cities and diversifying suburbs instead of treating either as geographically isolated phenomena.

The New York City (NYC) metropolitan area has provided one of the starkest examples of this trend. NYC had the most gentrified neighborhoods and the highest number of neighborhoods with Latinx displacement in the country between 2000 and 2013 (Richardson et al. 2019). During the same time period that gentrification became more widespread in the City, the metropolitan region was expanded to include more outer-ring suburban counties like Orange County and Dutchess County after the 2010 census- with these suburbs having triple the population growth than NYC and inner-ring suburbs. Additionally, the share of people living in NYC suburbs who identified as Latinx rose from 12.6 percent in 2000 to 20.5 percent in 2019 (Zapatka & Tran, 2023). Despite this reality, suburban schools remain understudied on questions of modern day demographic change and educational inequality. Between 2000 and 2018, only 12 percent of articles in AERJ were focused on suburban schools (Diamond & Posey-Maddox, 2020).

Drawing from a mixed-methods comparative case study (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) that explored the decision-making processes of Latinx parents about where to live amid demographic inversion in NYC’s metropolitan area and action research projects with two suburban districts, this paper discusses connections between the factors that shape parents’ decisions about where to live after they leave gentrifying neighborhoods and the pressures suburban school leaders face to address widening student inequities in their districts. I rely on in-depth interviews, participant-observations, and critical discourse analyses of public comments in virtual forums and public meetings.

The stories of these parents and school districts provide a microcosm of the reshaping of the ethnoracial landscape of metropolitan neighborhoods and schools over the last decade. Furthermore, their experiences help us understand how much of the way we theorize inequality and stratification in urban education extends into the suburban context. What happens in the city centers of metropolitan areas with respect to gentrification has ripple effects out into suburban schools and communities. The findings discussed in this article provide insights for how schools and local governments can best meet the needs of the increasingly diverse student populations they serve and create equitable school experiences for students and families.

Author

• Diana Cordova-Cobo, Student Achievement Partners