Disentangling the Association between Racial Change, Neighborhood Economic Change, and Crime

• In Event: Communities and Place: Setting an Agenda for Neighborhoods, Race, and Crime Research in the 21st Century

Abstract

Gentrification is a multifaceted neighborhood process that is generally associated with positive economic change and shifts in resident demographics. Stereotypically, these demographic shifts refer to the influx of well-educated affluent white residents into minority and less economically prosperous neighborhoods, though research suggests that gentrification can occur regardless of the specific racial or ethnic groups involved. Racially homogenous neighborhoods may be less likely to gentrify and receive beneficial community economic resources associated with gentrification, both of which may have implications for crime. However, the impacts of gentrification, or neighborhood economic change more generally, on crime are unclear although studies have shown that gentrification can exacerbate racial inequalities and racial tension. The lack of consistent findings in the extant literature may be because most studies focus on gentrification’s impacts on crime and disregard how crime may be a driver of gentrification itself and the associated racial change. This suggests that it is important to disentangle the potentially reciprocal relationship between the racial demographics of a neighborhood, economic change, and crime. We use panel data on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and crime in Los Angeles neighborhoods to examine the potentially reciprocal relationships between change in racial composition, gentrification/economic change, and crime.

Authors

• Gill Lexi, University of South Florida

• Lyndsay N. Boggess, University of South Florida