Does Spatial Assimilation Lead to Reproduction of Gentrification in the Global City?

Background & Purpose: In the last 50 years, as the U.S. immigrant population has increased, diversified and expanded to medium and small cities as has inner-city decline and gentrification. Social workers are involved in asset building in inner cities as well as immigrant integration services. However, some policy makers have proposed that recruiting high skilled and wealthy immigrants to promote economic development and revitalize the urban core, a policy that challenges social work values. Furthermore, this policy impulse appears to ignore the literature on neighborhood change regarding "spatial assimilation," a pattern in which immigrant and minority households with assimilative characteristics (e.g., possessing the ability to speak English and obtain professional middle-class status) are able to live in white, Anglo spaces found in suburban and exurban neighborhoods. As contact theory suggests, these white, Anglo residents may seek diverse spaces and gentrify. Is there a relationship between spatial assimilation and gentrification? First, has increasing spatial assimilation in the suburbs led to increasing gentrification in the center city? We hypothesize that the rate of suburban census tracts in a metropolitan area that experience spatial assimilation is associated with the rate of urban core tracts that experience gentrification. Second, has gentrification changed the relative balance of nativity, race, and ethnicity? We hypothesize that whites and immigrants are returning to the inner-city after decades of flight.

Methods: This study uses normalized Census data from the National Neighborhood Change Database (1970-2010) using standard panel data techniques. The sample includes 59,783 census tracts within 366 metropolitan Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs). Gentrification is measured by a decade increase in inner-city tract-level well-being (e.g. income, occupational status, education level, property values). Spatial assimilation by the decade increase in the racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity of suburban tracts. The second research question is answered using a quasi-experimental design. Gentrifiying tracts are matched to other gentrification eligible tracts that are similar but did not gentrify using a propensity score based on the variables that define gentrification listed above.

Results: The first hypothesis is supported. Gentrification has been increasing by a factor of 21% per decade. Spatial assimilation has also increasing by a factor of 70% per decade. A one tract increase in spatial assimilation per MSA per decade yields a 1.005 factor increase in Gentrification tracts. The second hypothesis is not supported. From 1990 to 2000, there was a significant decrease in the percent Asian and Black in gentrifying tracts. In contrast, from 2000 to 2010, there was a statistically significant increase in the proportion Hispanic and Black at the expense of a statistically significant decrease in the proportion whites.

Implications: Our research shows that policy makers who want to encourage immigrants to gentrify inner-city neighborhoods will be going against recent trends. Social work researchers need to conduct research on gentrification in the context of spatial assimilation as part of a broader system. Immigrant integration services are standard social interventions, but perhaps it is time for a gentrification intervention because it is on the rise.