Virginia Mercury, March 20th, 2019: Report claims Virginia Beach and Richmond are the most gentrified cities in the state
Virginia Beach and Richmond are two of the most gentrified large cities in the country, according to a new report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
Virginia Beach had a 17 percent gentrification rate as calculated by the coalition while Richmond had a 16 percent rate. The coalition measured population and income changes in low-income census tracts over at least 10 years.
Washington, D.C., had the highest intensity of gentrification in the country, at 40 percent.
“Gentrification is controversial because it affects people at the neighborhood level, it can disrupt the familiar and established ties of a place, creating a disorienting new locale,” the report stated. “For people displaced as the neighborhood becomes unaffordable, this is more than just nostalgia or discomfort with the unfamiliar. Often, they must accept longer commutes and a disruption of the support structures provided by their old neighbors and family.”
Virginia Beach was one of 15 cities in the country with the most neighborhoods gentrified, according to the study. Richmond was among the cities with the highest number of displaced black residents because of gentrification.
In four census tracts in Richmond, the black population fell 45 percent between 1990-2010 while the white population increased 30 percent in the same area. The city’s overall population increased 10 percent over the same time, according to the report.
It didn’t provide a similar analysis for Virginia Beach.
Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the NCRC, told The Washington Post gentrification can signal economic investment — though it has often come at the expense of culture and community pre-dating the investment.
“I think the loss of these cultural institutions has really changed the identity of neighborhoods in a way that might be unwelcome by the people who have lived there,” Van Tol told The Post.
The report included a description of what gentrification looks like in Richmond’s East End neighborhood.
