IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v52y2015i10p1753-1773.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The back-to-the-city movement: Neighbourhood redevelopment and processes of political and cultural displacement

Author

Listed:
  • Derek Hyra

Abstract

While certain US cities are still depopulating, others have experienced a reversal of aggregate out-migration patterns. Some scholars, politicians and real estate boosters celebrate this urban population influx, as it will likely increase property values and municipal tax bases; however, we know little about the social costs associated with the back-to-the-city movement. This study investigates the consequences of the back-to-the-city movement through a four-year (2009–2012) ethnographic case study of the revitalisation of Washington, DC’s Shaw/U Street neighbourhood. The redevelopment of this African-American neighbourhood is associated with the city’s 5.2 percent population increase, which occurred between 2000 and 2010. While affordable housing efforts help to keep a portion of long-term, low-income residents in place, political and cultural displacement is occurring as upper-income newcomers flock into this neighbourhood. This article contributes to the urban literature by highlighting that population influx, and associated neighbourhood revitalisation, can have important social implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Derek Hyra, 2015. "The back-to-the-city movement: Neighbourhood redevelopment and processes of political and cultural displacement," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(10), pages 1753-1773, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:10:p:1753-1773
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098014539403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098014539403
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098014539403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa A. Sturtevant & Yu Jin Jung, 2011. "Are We Moving Back to the City? Examining Residential Mobility in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 48-71, March.
    2. Barrett Lee & Daphne Spain & Debra Umberson, 1985. "Neighborhood revitalization and racial change: The case of Washington, D.C," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 22(4), pages 581-602, November.
    3. H. Gibbs Knotts & Moshe Haspel, 2006. "The Impact of Gentrification on Voter Turnout," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(1), pages 110-121, March.
    4. McKinnish, Terra & Walsh, Randall & Kirk White, T., 2010. "Who gentrifies low-income neighborhoods?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 180-193, March.
    5. Tom Slater, 2009. "Missing Marcuse: On gentrification and displacement," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2-3), pages 292-311, June.
    6. Mark Joseph, 2006. "Is mixed‐income development an antidote to urban poverty?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 209-234.
    7. Elvin Wyly & Mona Atia & Daniel Hammel, 2004. "Has mortgage capital found an inner‐city spatial fix?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 623-685.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kemeny, Thomas & Osman, Taner, 2017. "The wider impacts of high-technology employment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101854, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Kemeny, Tom & Osman, Taner, 2018. "The wider impacts of high-technology employment: Evidence from U.S. cities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1729-1740.
    3. Flora Lindsay-Herrera, 2019. "One City for All? The Characteristics of Residential Displacement in Southwest Washington, DC," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-14, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Hartley, Daniel, 2020. "Accounting for central neighborhood change, 1980–2010," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. Cody Hochstenbach & Wouter PC van Gent, 2015. "An anatomy of gentrification processes: variegating causes of neighbourhood change," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(7), pages 1480-1501, July.
    3. Tim Winke, 2021. "Housing affordability sets us apart: The effect of rising housing prices on relocation behaviour," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(12), pages 2389-2404, September.
    4. Guy Baeten & Sara Westin & Emil Pull & Irene Molina, 2017. "Pressure and violence: Housing renovation and displacement in Sweden," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(3), pages 631-651, March.
    5. Berrebi, Simon J. & Watkins, Kari E., 2020. "Who’s ditching the bus?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 21-34.
    6. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M., 2011. "Blessing or curse? Appreciation, amenities and resistance to urban renewal," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 32-45, January.
    7. Alex Ramiller, 2022. "Displacement through development? Property turnover and eviction risk in Seattle," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1148-1166, May.
    8. Lei Ding & Jackelyn Hwang, 2016. "The Consequences of Gentrification: A Focus on Residents’ Financial Health in Philadelphia," Working Papers 16-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Waights, Sevrin, 2018. "Does gentrification displace poor households? An ‘identification-via-interaction’ approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88691, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Lester, T. William & Hartley, Daniel A., 2014. "The long term employment impacts of gentrification in the 1990s," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 80-89.
    11. Sako Musterd & Wouter PC van Gent & Marjolijn Das & Jan Latten, 2016. "Adaptive behaviour in urban space: Residential mobility in response to social distance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(2), pages 227-246, February.
    12. Simon J. Berrebi & Kari E. Watkins, 2020. "Whos Ditching the Bus?," Papers 2001.02200, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2020.
    13. Fransham, Mark, 2020. "Neighbourhood gentrification, displacement, and poverty dynamics in post-recession England," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103905, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Elvin Wyly & Kathe Newman & Alex Schafran & Elizabeth Lee, 2010. "Displacing New York," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(11), pages 2602-2623, November.
    15. Benjamin Preis & Aarthi Janakiraman & Alex Bob & Justin Steil, 2021. "Mapping gentrification and displacement pressure: An exploration of four distinct methodologies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(2), pages 405-424, February.
    16. Gabriel Ahlfeldt, 2010. "Blessing or Curse? Appreciation, Amenities and Resistance around the Berlin "Mediaspree"," Working Papers 032, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    17. Sue Easton & Loretta Lees & Phil Hubbard & Nicholas Tate, 2020. "Measuring and mapping displacement: The problem of quantification in the battle against gentrification," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(2), pages 286-306, February.
    18. Gabriel Schwake & Haim Yacobi, 2024. "Decolonisation, gentrification, and the settler-colonial city: Reappropriation and new forms of urban exclusion in Israel," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(4), pages 618-638, June.
    19. Lance Freeman & Tiancheng Cai, 2015. "White Entry into Black Neighborhoods," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 660(1), pages 302-318, July.
    20. Hila Zaban, 2020. "The real estate foothold in the Holy Land: Transnational gentrification in Jerusalem," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(15), pages 3116-3134, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:10:p:1753-1773. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.