The composition and stability of demographic integration through gentrification

ABSTRACT Gentrification, the increase of land values and resident socioeconomic status in previously low-income neighborhoods, is related to the emergence of demographically mixed White neighborhoods. But questions remain as to what kinds of mixtures (White/Black, White/Hispanic, or White/Asian) gentrification facilitates and how stable they are over time. To address this limitation, this study utilizes Census and American Community Survey data for metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2010. We use a typology of racial/ethnic neighborhoods by composition to determine what kind of demographic integration, if any, results from gentrification and how stable it is over time. Using hybrid fixed effects logistic regression to control for modeled and unmodeled factors, we find gentrification is associated with the emergence of mixed-White-and-Black and mixed-White-and-Hispanic neighborhoods, but not mixed White-and-Asian/Pacific Islander neighborhoods. Using conventional logistic regression, we find gentrification that began in the 1980s is related to the long-term integration of Whites with Hispanics and Blacks.