Suburbia-birds as Central City Super-Gentrifiers: The Case of Second Homeownership in Boston, Massachusetts

• In Event: 189 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. Gentrification and Neighborhood Change

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic, interview, and census data, this paper aims to identify how second homeowners in Boston frame their residential choices. Over the past 10 years, second homeownership has increased by almost 92% across the city and is concentrated in neighborhoods like Back Bay, North End Waterfront, and the South Boston Waterfront. Popular media has drawn attention to this same phenomenon in New York and London, where the density of second homeownership has brought into question the implications of “ghost buildings” or “zombie neighborhoods” for community and neighborhood character. However, the growing presence of second homeowners and their corresponding role in neighborhood character and change has received little systematic analytic attention. This paper finds that second homeowners— described in the paper as suburbia birds, or, retired and semi-retired suburban residents who flock to the central city for cultural amenities—fall within and broaden Lees’ (2003) conceptualization of “super-gentrifiers.” While these suburbia birds share many of the same characteristics of Lees’ super-gentrifiers, they are not “financifiers” in the traditional sense, but instead are primarily retirees and semi-retirees. By shedding light on this new group of affluent in-migrants, a more complete story of the changing socio-spatial landscape of the central city can be told.

Author

• Meaghan Stiman, Boston University