The media tend to portray urban neighborhoods as either booming gentrified districts or zones of impoverishment. Neighborhoods in between get overlooked. But these older urban and inner-suburban “middle neighborhoods” may be where the next generation of urban problems—or solutions—will be found. Cities once held vast tracts of such neighborhoods, populated by workers in manufacturing or the civil service. With what analysts call a “barbell” economy dividing increasingly into rich and poor, it's no surprise that urban middle-class neighborhoods are feeling squeezed.
One of the culprits here is sprawl. In slow-growing regions where new home construction exceeds household growth, new homes put downward pressure on the price of existing homes. Those who can afford the newer, less centrally located homes move, reducing the price of comparable housing in older neighborhoods, leading poorer people to move into these older neighborhoods. This process is called filtering, and it can be a healthy, renewing process in a vibrant local economy. But in stagnant areas, filtering leads to the hollowing-out of the oldest housing stock and ultimately to distressed, abandoned neighborhoods.
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