Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Neighborhood Change and Revitalization

(Housing and Community Development)

This panel brings together a series of papers on urban policy, gentrification and neighborhood change. The first paper (McCabe and Ellen) investigates the impact of historic preservation on the racial and economic characteristics of New York City neighborhoods. It asks whether the designation of a historic community speeds the process of gentrification, or contributes to patterns of racial change. The second paper (Ellen, Horn and Reed) looks at the relationship between crime and gentrification. In the face of falling central city crime rates, it investigates whether households with more resources and options - notably, higher income households and white households - are more willing to make pro-integrative moves into neighborhoods. The third paper (Schuetz, Spader and Cortes) looks specifically at a federal community development policy - the Neighborhood Stabilization Program - to examine the impact of community investments on housing market outcomes. The paper reports little evidence that NSP investments are associated with housing market outcomes. The final paper (Meltzer and Ghorbani) examines the process of gentrification on local employment. The paper finds that gentrifying neighborhoods do not experience meaningful gains in local employment compared to other comparable low-income neighborhoods.