Search Results
Journal Article
Understanding Gentrification’s Causes
What do three centuries of Philadelphia history tell us about today?s changing neighborhoods?
Working Paper
Supply Shock Versus Demand Shock: The Local Effects of New Housing in Low-Income Areas
We study the local effects of new market-rate housing in low-income areas using microdata on large apartment buildings, rents, and migration. New buildings decrease nearby rents by 5 to 7 percent relative to locations slightly farther away or developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. Results are driven by a large supply effect—we show that new buildings absorb many high-income households—that overwhelms any offsetting endogenous amenity effect. The latter may be small because most new buildings go into already-changing areas. Contrary to common concerns, new ...
Working Paper
The Consequences of Gentrification: A Focus on Residents’ Financial Health in Philadelphia
There have been considerable debate and controversy about the effects of gentrification on neighborhoods and the people residing in them. This paper draws on a unique large-scale consumer credit database to examine the relationship between gentrification and the credit scores of residents in the City of Philadelphia from 2002 to 2014. We find that gentrification is positively associated with changes in residents? credit scores on average for those who stay, and this relationship is stronger for residents in neighborhoods in the more advanced stages of gentrification. Gentrification is also ...
Working Paper
The Effects of Gentrification on the Well-Being and Opportunity of Original Resident Adults and Children
We use new longitudinal census microdata to provide the first causal evidence of how gentrification affects a broad set of outcomes for original resident adults and children. Gentrification modestly increases out-migration, though movers are not made observably worse off and neighborhood change is driven primarily by changes to in-migration. At the same time, many original resident adults stay and benefit from declining poverty exposure and rising house values. Children benefit from increased exposure to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and some are more likely to attend and complete ...
Speech
Fulfilling our economic potential: remarks at the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development 2019 Annual Conference, New York City
Remarks at the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development 2019 Annual Conference, New York City.
Working Paper
Effects of Gentrification on Homeowners: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
A major overhaul of the property tax system in 2013 in the city of Philadelphia has generated significant variations in the amount of property taxes across properties. This exogenous policy shock provides a unique opportunity to identify the causal effects of gentrification, which is often accompanied by increased property values, on homeowners’ tax payment behavior and residential mobility. The analysis, based on a difference-in-differences framework, suggests that gentrification leads to a higher risk of delinquency on homeowners’ tax bills on average, but there was no sign of a ...
Working Paper
What Have We Learned About the Causes of Recent Gentrification?
Since 2000, strengthening gentrification in an expanding section of cities and neighborhoods has renewed interest from policymakers, researchers, and the public in the causes of gentrification. The identification of causal factors can help inform analyses of welfare, policy responses, and forecasts of future neighborhood change. We highlight some features of recent gentrification that popular understandings often do not emphasize, and we review progress on identifying some causal factors. However, a complete account of the relative contribution of many factors is still elusive. We suggest ...
Working Paper
Has COVID Reversed Gentrification in Major U.S. Cities? An Empirical Examination of Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods During the COVID-19 Crisis
This paper examines whether neighborhoods that had been gentrifying lost their appeal during the pandemic because of COVID-induced health risks and increased work-from-home arrangements. By following the mobility pattern of residents in gentrifying neighborhoods in 39 major U.S. cities, we note a larger increase of 1.2 percentage points in the outmigration rate from gentrifying neighborhoods by the end of 2021, relative to nongentrifying ones, with out-of-city moves accounting for over 71 percent of the increased flight. The share of out-of-city moves into gentrifying neighborhoods also ...
Working Paper
Natural amenities, neighborhood dynamics, and persistence in the spatial distribution of income
We present theory and evidence highlighting the role of natural amenities in neighborhood dynamics, suburbanization, and variation across cities in the persistence of the spatial distribution of income. Our model generates three predictions that we confirm using a novel database of consistent-boundary neighborhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas, 1880{2010, and spatial data for natural features such as coastlines and hills. First, persistent natural amenities anchor neighborhoods to high incomes over time. Second, naturally heterogeneous cities exhibit persistent spatial distributions of income. ...
Working Paper
Natural Amenities, Neighborhood Dynamics, and Persistence in the Spatial Distribution of Income
We present theory and evidence highlighting the role of natural amenities in neighborhood dynamics, suburbanization, and variation across cities in the persistence of the spatial distribution of income. Our model generates three predictions that we confirm using a novel database of consistent-boundary neighborhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas, 1880{2010, and spatial data for natural features such as coastlines and hills. First, persistent natural amenities anchor neighborhoods to high incomes over time. Second, naturally heterogeneous cities exhibit persistent spatial distributions of income. ...