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The opinions expressed in this guest editors' introduction and in the following articles and commentaries are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia or the Federal Reserve System.
The term gentrification inevitably generates controversy and disagreement. People disagree about its definition, its causes, and, above all, its consequences. All seem to agree, however, that whatever gentrification is, it is becoming more prevalent in U.S. cities. Articles in the popular media now regularly highlight gentrihcation's increasing reach and pace. One Boston Globe reporter wrote in 2016, "Transformation has always been part of city living, and part of life. But in neighborhoods like East Boston and South Boston, rents are rising so fast that they're dramatically speeding up the natural order of things" (Teitell, 2016).
Despite this sense of accelerating change and anxiety about its consequences, rigorous research on the extent, causes, and consequences of gentrification remains rare. Even less research exists on the efficacy of potential policy responses. Thus, the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia and Minneapolis, the New York University (NYU) Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) decided to jointly convene a research conference (Research Symposium on Gentrification and Neighborhood Change) on May 25, 2016, to bring together a set of multidisciplinary researchers to explore what we know about gentrification and its effects. Selected papers from that conference are included in this Symposium section of Cityscape.
Recent Trends
Although the articles included in this symposium adopt slightly different definitions, they generally view gentrification as increases in household income, education, and/or housing costs in previously low-income, central city neighborhoods. Some also consider increases in the percentage of White households.
Using variants of this basic definition, exhibits 1 through 4 make it clear that gentrification is indeed growing more common in U.S. cities. The exhibits show the share of initially low-income, central city neighborhoods (defined as census tracts with mean household incomes at less than the 40th percentile of the metropolitan area at the start of a decade) that saw large gains in socioeconomic status or the percentage of White residents relative to the rest of the metropolitan area during the 1980s,...