Gentrification in a Diversifying City: Race and Renewal in Seattle Neighborhoods

• In Event: 083 - Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Research Session. Issues in Inequality, Race, and Social Structure

Abstract

Most understandings of the relationship between race and gentrification are based on evidence from contexts of high levels of racial segregation. This article examines the role of race and ethnicity in pathways of gentrification in a city with relatively low levels of segregation and a predominantly Asian minority population. I integrate Census data, prior gentrification field surveys, and contemporary measures of gentrification using Google Street View to examine this relationship in Seattle neighborhoods. While early gentrification took place in neighborhoods with higher shares of whites and native-born residents, the trajectories of these neighborhoods reflect a more complex racial and ethnic ordering as neighborhoods diversify. Using police records and neighborhood surveys of residents over time, I further investigate the role of crime and perceptions of crime and disorder in mediating this relationship. The findings show how the relationship between race and gentrification adapts to the diversity that immigration brings and enhance our understanding of neighborhood inequality by race and ethnicity in patterns of gentrification.

Author

• Jackelyn Hwang, Harvard University