Differentiating pathways of neighborhood change in 50 U.S. metropolitan areas

Rapid transformations sweeping the United States over the past 50 years have necessitated a reassessment of longstanding theories on how the neighborhood change process has unfolded. This article builds upon recent methodological advancements aimed at understanding longitudinal dynamics by developing a workflow that blends the self-organizing map and a sequential alignment method to visualize pathways of change in a multivariate context. It identifies the predominant pathways in which neighborhoods have changed according to their racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and housing characteristics in the largest US metropolitan statistical areas from 1980 to 2010. The distribution of these pathways is subsequently examined between metropolitan statistical areas and the spatial clustering of these trajectories within cities is analyzed. Results reveal a white-flight type process, the establishment of a multiethnic neighborhood, densification of single-family neighborhoods, gentrification in relatively diverse neighborhoods, upgrading of white single family neighborhoods, and the most frequent pathway of all: no change. High-poverty minority and wealthy white neighborhoods are most spatially compact and expanding in a contiguous manner, while multiethnic neighborhoods are relatively dispersed. Six groups of metropolitan statistical areas are identified based upon the similarity of their neighborhood composition. Parallels are drawn between the formation of enduring high-poverty black neighborhoods in Northern and Midwestern cities and the emergence of clusters high-poverty Hispanic neighborhoods in Hispanic destination cities.