Peripheral Affluence: The Rise of High-income Households Outside Super-Gentrifying Areas

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 14: Urban Mobility and Migration

Abstract

The immense resources of elite households shape the places where they live, work, play, and invest. Their presence transforms local demographics, housing, institutions, commercial activity, and the overall character and desirability of an area. Much scholarship focuses on clearly defined elite spaces, such as gated communities or gentrified neighborhoods. This presentation instead examines how elite influence extends across neighborhood boundaries, contributing to a wider regional pattern of upscaling. It explores where high-income households settle beyond established affluent enclaves and how these settlement patterns reflect the reach of super-gentrification into nearby areas. To investigate this dynamic, this study applies the concept of spatial spillover to super-gentrification. While traditional gentrification involves middle-class or creative-class newcomers reshaping an area, super-gentrification occurs when already gentrified neighborhoods experience an additional wave of transformation driven by highly educated, high-income professionals and luxury development. Although the direct effects of gentrification—rising housing prices, displacement, and demographic change—are well documented, little research has explored how the impacts of super-gentrification spread into adjacent areas and broader regions. This question is especially important as high-income household growth outpaces housing supply in affluent neighborhoods. The study uses a mixed-methods case study of Brooklyn, combining spatial statistics with ethnographic observations and interviews. I identify super-gentrifying block groups from 1990 to 2020, map their spread, and employ dynamic spatial econometric models to assess how super-gentrification in one location shapes the growth of high-income households in nearby and distant areas. Quantitative findings align with on-the-ground observations: affluent and aspirational groups tend to cluster close to elite enclaves, extending their territory outward, while high-income households also move into diverse neighborhoods across the borough. These simultaneous processes demonstrate both localized spillover and broader transformation. The findings have important implications for urban planners and community advocates addressing affordability and belonging in the contemporary city.

Author

• Judith R. Halasz, SUNY-New Paltz