Green Gentrification, Displacement, and Neighborhood Attachment around Light-Rail Public Transit

• In Event: 298 - Section on Environment and Technology Paper Session. Environment and Development (co-sponsored with Section on Sociology of Development)

Abstract

The neighborhood effects literature highlights the negative impact of perceptions of disorder, but does not adequately explain how residents experience and perceive displacement and gentrification caused by public infrastructure development. Some scholars contend that long-term low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods try harder to stay in their neighborhood to take advantage of improved assets despite increased rents. As physical disorder negatively impacts neighborhood attachment but improvements from gentrification may increase residents’ desires to stay in their neighborhood, how does displacement and green gentrification around light-rail public transit development affect neighborhood attachment of long-term residents? A neighborhood cognition approach reveals how low-income, long-term, Latino residents perceive displacement and neighborhood change around light-rail public transit development as a signal of neighborhood instability and impending gentrification. Neighborhood organizations activate ethnic identities and mediate residents’ neighborhood cognition and neighborhood attachment. The displacement of ethnic organizations fosters alienation and lower attitudinal and behavioral neighborhood attachment, while remaining organizations activate ethnic identities in transformed physical spaces, strengthening attitudinal and behavioral neighborhood attachment.

Author

• Lina Mary Caroline Stepick, University of California-Los Angeles