Discrepancies in Displacement: How Gentrification Affected Residents, Retailers, and Non-Profits in U.S. Gayborhoods, 1991-2008

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5. Gentrification I

Abstract

Does gentrification displace communities? If so, how? Scholars debate these questions, in part because literature streams on the displacement of residents, retailers, and non-profits provide conflicting evidence. Using a combination of data from the U.S. Census and the Gayellow Pages as well as a novel quantitative method that inductively identifies the locations of gayborhoods across the United States, this study investigates displacement patterns among same-sex couples and LGBTQ+ organizations in gentrified gayborhoods that spanned the 25 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in the 1990s and 2000s. Three findings show how displacement patterns that may appear contradictory are actually highly consistent. First, the largest gayborhoods lost same-sex couple households but gained LGBTQ+ organizations, suggesting that some gentrified neighborhoods become organizational focal points for a residentially dispersed community. Second, LGBTQ+ organizations survived longer in gentrifying gayborhoods if they expanded their clientele to include gentrifiers, an option that was unavailable to displaced residents. Third, gentrified gayborhoods were more likely to retain and gain LGBTQ+ businesses, while ungentrified gayborhoods were more likely to retain and gain LGBTQ+ non-profits. When taken together, these seemingly contradictory forms of displacement jointly demonstrate how gentrification commodifies neighborhoods for gentrifiers’ consumption.

Authors

• Mahesh Somashekhar, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Giacomo Fabrizio Negro, Emory University

• Victoria Lauren Isaac, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Eunice Cho, University of Illinois-Chicago