Gentrification, Segregation, and Discrimination in the American Urban System

Abstract

Recent discussions of the ‘geography of gentrification’ highlight the need for comparative analysis of the nature and consequences of inner-city transformation. In this paper, the authors map the effects of housing-market and policy changes in the 1990s, focusing on 23 large cities in the USA. Using evidence from field surveys and a mortgage-lending database, they measure the class selectivity of gentrification and its relation to processes of racial and ethnic discrimination. They find a strong resurgence of capital investment in the urban core, along with magnified class segregation. The boom of the 1990s and policies targeted towards ‘new markets' narrowed certain types of racial and ethnic disparities in urban credit markets, but there is evidence of intensified discrimination and exclusion in gentrified neighborhoods.