NBC Washington, March 20th, 2019: The District has experienced the most intense gentrification in the country, study says
Washington, D.C.’s neighborhoods have experienced intense gentrification, resulting in the displacement of more than 20,000 African American residents from 2000 to 2013, a study released Tuesday said.
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s study of that 13-year period found that the District had the highest percentage of gentrifying neighborhoods out of all the cities analyzed.
Washington also experienced the highest “intensity” of gentrification in the country, according to the researchers who examined changing housing markets, population demographics and levels in income and education in major U.S. cities.
Gentrification is the social and economic process in which economic development, new residents and rising housing costs can drive out longtime neighborhood residents, disrupt pre-existing cultural dynamics and transform communities.
A Look Back at DC’s ‘Black Broadway’
Among the study’s key takeaways were that 40 percent of D.C.’s lower-income neighborhoods experienced displacement because of both development and increased housing costs and that 32 percent of Washington’s black population was displaced between 2000 and 2010.
The study’s authors — Jason Richardson, Bruce Mitchell and Juan Franco — said that black displacement in Washington is especially “notable” and that seven cities, including Washington, accounted for half of the country’s gentrification.
They also provided examples of communities that have experienced tremendous demographic transformations.
