For all the debate, gentrification is far from the norm.

Neighborhood Change, 1970 to 2010
Transition and Growth in Urban High Poverty Neighborhoods

Joseph Cortright, Impresa, Inc. ([email protected])
Dillon Mahmoudi, Portland State University ([email protected])
May 2014


Among urban policy-focused academics, few issues today are as distressing and contentious as gentrification. Much of the focus in public debate has been on the newly upscale neighborhoods in major U.S. cities, like New York’s Chelsea, East Village, or Williamsburg; San Francisco’s Portero Hill and Mission District; Chicago’s Wicker Park; or Boston’s South End.

But for all of this ferment, urban poverty remains deep and concentrated. Just how often do high-poverty neighborhoods really transform, with dramatic reductions in poverty rates? The answer will be essential for understanding who benefits from neighborhood change and who is left behind.

And according to a new study from Joseph Cortright of the economic consulting firm Impresa and Portland State doctoral student Dillon Mahmoudi, the answer is very rarely.

The study, released earlier this month, compared neighborhood-level poverty rates in the country’s 51 largest metro areas in 1970 and 2010, focusing on changes in the Census tracts within a 10 mile radius around the urban core. Using data from the U.S. Decennial Census and American Community Survey data compiled by the Brown University Longitudinal Database, the researchers found that very few high-poverty neighborhoods in 1970 dramatically reversed their fortunes over the next four decades.