The Impact of Super-gentrification on Neighborhood Composition

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

This project analyzes the impact of 'super-gentrification', an intensification of gentrification processes in already gentrified neighborhoods. The research asks where and how this process has impacted the racial and class composition of cities. Traditional gentrification involves middle class migration into working class neighborhoods. It is based on renovation of pre-existing housing stock and primarily displaces low income communities. In contrast, super-gentrification involves further upgrading of already gentrified or predominantly middle class neighborhoods. It often includes demolition and new construction (e.g. high-rise luxury housing development) and can produce new kinds of residential displacements (e.g. displacement of the middle class). Previous research has shown disparities in these kinds of displacements, so the study pays close attention to impacts on neighborhood demographic change. Research on super-gentrification is important because it helps us understand what happens after a neighborhood has been gentrified; how gentrification can continue and intensify over time. The study advances social science with a national analysis of super-gentrification: the researchers will analyze its impact not only in large coastal cities, but also in smaller cities and suburbs. The project will generate broader impacts by enhancing research capacity at a Minority Serving Institution. It will create opportunities to train students from groups that are under-represented in social science and STEM industries. The researchers will collaborate with a community advisory board, and will link the research to community education partnerships with local public schools and libraries.

The research will combine geographic information science (GIS) and qualitative social science methods (oral histories from residents of super-gentrified neighborhoods). The research questions are: Where have super-gentrification processes occurred in cities between 1990 and 2020? How does super-gentrification interact with spatial patterns of residential displacement? And how is super-gentrification perceived and experienced in majority-minority neighborhoods? The hypotheses are, respectively, that super-gentrification has occurred in a wider geography of cities than those covered in existing scholarship; that it reduces neighborhood diversity; and that displacement effects vary based on intersections of various demographic factors in a neighborhood. The research will contribute to social science research on the spatial effects of economic inequality, evaluating its implications for geographies of cities. It builds on existing scholarship with a nationally comparative spatial analysis of super-gentrification trends, offering a first of its kind empirical study by mapping degrees of gentrification across a wide geography of metropolitan areas. It advances research on the racialized dimensions of gentrification, by analyzing impacts in majority-minority neighborhoods, processes of integration and diversification in gentrifying neighborhoods, and emerging themes like middle class displacement and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.