Gentrification Can Help Turn Around Beleaguered Black Neighborhoods
Recently, the Washington Post again highlighted a widely-referenced study that seemingly documents severe adverse consequences to poorer residents of gentrified neighborhoods. Earlier last year, the Post first reported on the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) study that claimed that between 2000 and 2013, gentrification caused a substantial reduction of black residents “often accompanied by extreme and unnecessary culture displacement.” That study understates gentrification’s potential benefits and greatly overstates its potential costs.
According to the study, cultural displacement “occurs when minority areas see a rapid decline in their numbers as affluent, white gentrifiers replace the incumbent residents.” Operationally, however, the study designated cultural displacement whenever gentrified neighborhoods had as little as a 5 percent decline in its minority population. Even with this low bar, it found that only 22 percent of gentrified census tracts nationally met this level. As a result, it noted that “displacement of long-time residents was most intense in the nation’s biggest cities, and rare in most other places.”
The report quickly moved past these general national effects, focusing solely on those census tracts which, according to their definition, experienced cultural displacement. It highlighted Washington DC, where 40 percent of the eligible census tracts experienced gentrification and just over half (33 out of 62) experienced cultural displacement. The examples of cultural displacement given included the closing of a long-time restaurant and the ending of an annual musical event. Among these 33 census tracts, the average black population decline was just over 600.
If these census tracts contained the typical 4,000 residents, the black share would have decreased by 15 percent; if 3,000 residents, the drop would have been 20 percent. Five of the eight city wards were majority black in 2000. Four had limited black share declines and remained majority black in 2010 while the fifth shifted from 62.8 percent to 41.6 percent black. These modest black share declines suggest that even among the Washington gentrifying neighborhoods that had experienced significant black population declines, the vast majority remained majority black.
Modest neighborhood black population declines are consistent with other studies. One study found, “In absolute numbers, of the 930 predominantly minority neighborhoods that gentrified during the 1980s and 1990s, 746 were still predominantly minority, 176 had become racially integrated in 2016, and only 8 transitioned to predominantly white.” Thus, it is unclear why the racial shifts in gentrified neighborhoods should be characterized as “extreme” or why, since they overwhelmingly remain majority black, there should be significant cultural displacement.
Most critics of gentrification use the term “displacement” to strongly suggest that poor black residents were forced out because of rising rents or landlord harassment. However, as the NCRC study begrudgingly notes, the pace of movement out was no greater than what occurred in comparable non-gentrifying neighborhoods — a finding found in virtually all other studies of gentrification. The reduction of black shares reflects not a pushing out of poor residents but the disproportionate entry of whites into these neighborhoods. As a result, it is over time that the number of black residents of Washington’s gentrified neighborhoods declined, estimated at 20,000 over this thirteen-year period.
What the study ignores is how this reduction fits into the context of overall population shifts during this period. According to census data, between 2000 and 2010, Washington’s overall population increased by 30,000 but its black population declined by just over 38,000; if extrapolated over the study’s entire thirteen year period, the decline would have been 50,000. This indicates that something other than gentrification was driving black population movements. Most importantly, this strongly suggests that 20,000 blacks who left gentrifying neighborhoods could relatively easily find other comparable housing within the city.
Indeed, this is what virtually all studies have found. A comprehensive Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia study found that for the period between 2000 and 2014, poor families that moved out of gentrifying neighborhoods moved to neighborhoods that were just as good as the ones they left. Specifically, the authors noted, “We find no evidence that movers from gentrifying neighborhoods, including the most disadvantaged residents, move to observably worse neighbors or experience negative changes to employment, income, or commuting distance.”
While dramatically overstating its harmful effects, the NCRC study is correct that the government can do more to insulate legacy residents from pressures to move. Studies have shown that gentrification through new high-density construction limits these pressures. These buildings can be helpful if government requires a modest portion of units to be dedicated to below market rents and that it allocates its ground floor space to commercial and cultural establishments that support the needs and desires of legacy residents. As the NCRC notes, these and other efforts could enable more legacy residents to reap the benefits gentrification brings to neighborhoods.
Gentrification brings modest racial integration that we all desire and more services and amenities. In some case, it makes for better schools and lower crime rates. These positives have been accomplished without accelerating the movement out of legacy residents and without forcing them into inferior housing situations. By contrast, virtually no non-gentrifying poor black neighborhood has become integrated in the last twenty years. While we should implement policies to spread the benefits to more legacy residents, gentrification is a crucial component in turning around beleaguered black neighborhoods.
Robert Cherry is professor emeritus at Brooklyn College and is author of Jewish and Christian Views on Bodily Pleasure (Wipf & Stock, 2018).
