Moving Up or Moving Out? Examining Gentrification and the Spatial Displacement of Crime and Poverty

• In Event: 420 - Research Poster Session. Communicating Sociology

Abstract

Few empirical studies, however, have examined the consequence of gentrification; even fewer have examined the impact of gentrification on the displacement of crime and people over time and space. Given this dearth of research, our study examines whether gentrification contributes to displacement effects on the neighborhoods surrounding gentrifying areas. Specifically, we investigate whether gentrification in one neighborhood leads to higher crime and population shifts in nearby areas. Since gentrification is associated with an improvement in the housing stock, we measure gentrification as changing home values in a given neighborhood. As home values increase and new residents move into a gentrifying neighborhood, existing tenants may no longer be able to afford costs of living and as a result may relocate to other areas of residence. In this way, we hypothesize that gentrification will lead to the displacement of impoverished residents from the focal neighborhood to the surrounding areas. The influx of higher income households is also associated with a reduction in crime in gentrifying neighborhoods due to the increased economic resources to prevent victimization. If this is the case, criminogenic persons may choose to victimize the non-gentrifying areas where the likelihoods of detection and apprehension are lower. Therefore, we assess whether gentrification also leads to changes in the crime rates in nearby neighborhoods.

Authors

• Nicholas Branic, University of California-Irvine

• Lyndsay N. Boggess, University of South Florida