Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While some view gentrification as a process of urban "rebirth" and an opportunity for the residential integration and diversification of the central city, others contend that it actually displaces the incumbent residents whom it would presumably benefit, especially poor and working class minorities. Furthermore, models of neighborhood change implicitly assume that the racial residential consequences of gentrification affect all parts of a neighborhood in the same rapid fashion. Employing block-level census data from Belmont-Hillsboro, a gentrified neighborhood in Nashville, I test competing hypotheses about the impact of gentrification on racial composition and segregation for the period 1970-2000. In the years following the initial gentrification of Belmont-Hillsboro, changes in the neighborhood racial composition were more akin to gradual replacement than rapid gentrification-induced displacement, though the most recent census data reveal marked declines in the neighborhood’s black population between 1990 and 2000. Different processes of racial change have occurred simultaneously within subareas of Belmont-Hillsboro and block-level segregation has increased with the onset of renovation in predominantly black areas of the neighborhood. Overall, these results emphasize the importance of using block-level analyses of racial change over longer time periods in order to develop adequate explanations of the impact of gentrification.