This section contains abstracts of research papers prepared by staff of the Urban Institute and its local NNIP partners to advance knowledge about neighborhood change. The initial papers in this Neighborhood Change in Urban America research series are products of a Rockefeller Foundation supported project that focused on the analysis of change over the 1990s using census data from the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB).
- Population Growth and Decline in City Neighborhoods
By G. Thomas Kingsley and Kathryn L.S. Pettit, October 2002
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This paper finds that, in terms of population change at least, neighborhoods in the central cities of our 100 largest metropolitan areas generally performed better in the 1990s (gained more, lost less) than in the 1980s, but there were marked variations. Growth was generally more rapid in the sunbelt than the rustbelt, but neighborhoods in metropolitan areas with large Hispanic and Asian populations generally grew rapidly even in the Northeast and Midwest. In almost all areas, city neighborhoods with predominantly black populations and with high poverty rates were most likely to decline, but a nontrivial share of high-poverty neighborhoods did gain significantly. These warrant closer scrutiny using 2000 census data on social and economic conditions.
- Concentrated Poverty: A Change in Course
By G. Thomas Kingsley and Kathryn L.S. Pettit, May 2003
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Research on the increasing concentration of poverty in the 1980s gave renewed prominence to the role of neighborhood conditions in social policy. This paper begins an examination of trends in this phenomenon during the 1990s, covering all U.S. metropolitan areas. It opens with data on patterns of increase and decrease in concentrated poverty, nationally and for different regions and types of metropolitan areas. Data are presented using both a 40 percent and a 30 percent poverty rate cut-off for defining high-poverty census tracts. The paper also examines the mechanics by which these changes took place. The central finding is that, after decades of moving in the other direction, poverty became notably less concentrated in the 1990s. The share of the metropolitan poor who live in high-poverty neighborhoods (poverty rates of 30 percent or more) increased from 25 to 31 percent in the 1980s but dropped back to 26 percent in 2000. The share of all such neighborhoods in large central cities and with predominantly black populations declined while shares of those in the suburbs and those with predominantly Hispanic populations increased.
This paper was presented at a forum held at the Brookings Institution on May 19 in conjunction with a paper by Paul Jargowsky entitled "Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems: Declines in Concentrated Poverty in the 1990s." For more information, including transcripts, powerpoint presentations, and audio coverage of the forum, visit the Brookings Institution web page.
- Race and Residence: Prospects for Stable Neighborhood Integration
By Lynette Rawlings, Laura Harris and Margery Austin Turner, April 2004
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This report tracked changes in neighborhood racial composition in 69 major metropolitan areas where African Americans are the predominant minority group. Although most neighborhoods in large metropolitan areas remain either exclusively white or predominantly black, there has been a slow decline in residential segregation in the last few decades. As a result, more neighborhoods in metropolitan America are shared by blacks and whites today than in the past. In addition to finding evidence of a growing number of racially diverse neighborhoods, the authors conclude that most of these newly integrated areas are stable and do not inevitably "tip" to become more predominantly black over time. This pattern applies to both city and suburban neighborhoods.
- Understanding Community Change: A Look at Low-Income Chicago Neighborhoods in the 1990s
By Sean Zielenbach, Housing Research Foundation, February 2005
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This paper examines the trajectory of low-income neighborhoods in Chicago, classifying them by their economic, housing, racial, and immigrant characteristics. It finds that while Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods generally experienced notable improvement, the most significant improvements took place in low-income communities closest to the downtown. The city’s overwhelmingly black neighborhoods also improved, although they continued to lose substantial portions of their population. Neighborhoods with high proportions of immigrants tended to decline on a number of economic measures, but the substantial population growth in these neighborhoods bodes well for their future prospects.
- Concentrated Poverty: Dynamics of Change
By G. Thomas Kingsley and Kathryn L.S. Pettit, August 2007
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America’s urban neighborhoods generally fared better in the 1990s than they did over the preceding decade, but this brief shows patterns of change were far from uniform. It contrasts census tracts in the 100 largest metropolitan areas that improved over a decade (poverty rate decreased by 5 percentage points or more) with those that worsened (poverty rate increased by 5 points or more). Indeed, a larger share improved in the 1990s (11 percent) than in the 1980s (8 percent). But even though the numbers were declining, the shares that worsened were actually larger in both decades: 15 percent in the 1990s down from 19 percent in the 1980s. The share of neighborhoods that improved in the 1990s was much higher where markets were strong than where they were weak, but the results were always a mix; some neighborhoods worsened even in the strongest markets and vice versa. Neighborhoods that worsened most often saw sizeable increases in minority populations, but racial composition did not change as much in improving tracts, suggesting that gentrification was not the dominant explanation. While there were many exceptions, tracts that improved were most often found in the inner portions of the central city and the outer rings of the suburbs, while tracts that worsened were more prevalent in the outer portions of the cities and, in particular, the inner ring of the suburbs. Beyond that, we found no simple set of indicators as of 1990 that reliably differentiated how tracts would change over the subsequent decade. Local officials cannot be complacent about the good news that has been reported about urban trends of late. Clearly, they should make better use of local data to get early warnings of worsening and improvement and to learn more effective ways to address the challenges that both imply.
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