Evanston Now, March 25th, 2017: Study finds no gentrification in Evanston
A new study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found substantial levels of gentrification in many big city neighborhoods, but concluded there was no area of Evanston that is experiencing gentrification.
That’s in part because only one Evanston census tract met the study’s threshold standards for being capable of being gentrified — that the median household income and median home values in the neighborhood in 2000 were in the lower 40 percent for each value in the Chicago metro area.
The one part of Evanston the study says could gentrify is census tract 8102 on the south edge of Evanston, bounded by Howard Street, Asbury Avenue, Oakton Street and the CTA tracks.
It had a median home value in 2000 of $182,017 — just below the study’s cutoff of $183,040. And the median household income there in 2000 was $59,830 — a bit below the cutoff of $61,121.
Those figures, from the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey, are inflation-adjusted to be comparable to estimated values in 2013. And far from seeing rising values, by 2013 home values in tract 8102 had slumped to $177,300, and median household incomes had dropped to $55,123.
By contrast, the study found hundreds of neighborhoods in the City of Chicago which met the criteria for being capable of being gentrified and 26 where gentrification had actually happened during the period from 2000 to 2013.
The NCRC study looked at three factors in determining whether gentrification had taken place — increases in education levels, home values and income.
