Daily Mail, March 20th, 2019: Gentrification plagues large US cities – and Washington DC is worst
Washington D.C. has the worst gentrification problem in America, with 40 percent of its low-income neighborhoods affected by an influx of wealthier residents, rising home prices and shifting demographics, according to a new study.
As wealthy white people moved into these D.C. neighborhoods, 20,000 African American residents were displaced – more than any other city in the nation, according to the report by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
Researchers defined the problem in D.C. and other U.S. cities as ‘intensive gentrification,’ or when more than 10 Census tracts within a city underwent gentrification from 2000-2013. Gentrification occurred in 62 out of 154 of D.C.’s low-income Census tracts during that period. Census tracts are small geographic regions that typically encompass a population of 2,500-8,000 people.
While D.C. was the most gentrified by the percentage of neighborhoods affected, New York City was the most gentrified by ‘sheer volume,’ with 24 percent of its low-income neighborhoods experiencing the phenomenon and nearly 15,000 African Americans displaced, according to the report.
Nationwide, gentrification has been concentrated in larger cities, particularly as more wealthy people have returned from the suburbs. The pattern often forces many low-income Americans – particularly minorities – to move to further-flung suburbs or neighborhoods where the cost of housing is lower.
