Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A gentrifiable neighborhood features attractive exogenous amenities and low-income or otherwise marginalized communities. While events that trigger gentrification are well-studied (Hwang and Lin 2016 Cityscape), causes of gentrifiability have been considered less frequently. Such neighborhoods are rare; throughout US history, attractive neighborhoods are generally home to wealthy residents (Lee and Lin 2018 REStud). What forces, policies, and actors made some neighborhoods gentrifiable? This paper explores the connections between the creation of gentrifiable neighborhoods and mid-20th century changes to policy and industry. I focus on freeway construction, housing construction and finance policy, and the changing locations for manufacturing. In some cases, temporary changes to industry or policy served to reduce the exogenous amenities of once-attractive locations. The reversal of these changes led to gentrifiability. These policy changes often reflected intentional disinvestment by local and federal governments--as well as the firms they regulate--from central neighborhoods with large Black populations as well as burgeoning immigrant communities. At the same time, parallel policies of investment favored white neighborhoods both in central neighborhoods and in exclusionary suburbs, especially prior to the Civil Rights movement and the Fair Housing Act. Finally, I use a combination of theory, measurement, and history to contextualize current research on gentrification’s causes.