Understanding Gentrification in New York City

Using the data from NYU's Furman Center for Urban Policy, our visualization colors a map of the subboroughs of NYC certain shades of blue depending how "much" gentrification there is going on in a certain area. Darker colored subboroughs are supposed to be impacted more by gentrification than lighter colorerd areas.

We've normalized all the data from NYU so that each value, regardless of attribute, is between 0 and 1. We then add the normalized values from the selected attributes and year to generate a sum that represents a "Gentrification Score". A higher score will correspond to a darker color on the color scale. We recognize that not all attributes are positively correlated with the amount of gentrification going on in a certain area. Consider the "Housing Units" attribute, for example. More housing units indicates more supply, which can lead to lower rent and more affordable housing. Less housing units, however, can lead to more gentrification as this can cause higher rent and more displaced people. For metrics like this, we simply find the normalized value for metric x and take its complement (1 - x).

To understand how Gentrification is affecting New York City, we have selected 6 attributes that are strong indicators of Gentrification. Below, is our justification for each attribute:

• Housing Units: A limited housing supply for a growing population often results in rising rent. In turn this affects low-income households who are the least likely to keep up with the rising costs of living in the city.
• Mean Travel Time: Long commute times could be reasoning for people to move from the suburbs to the city in order to shorten the time they spend everyday going to and from work.
• Median Household Income: Higher household income is a consequence of having more affluent people moving into a specific area. This causes consumer preferences for an area to shift upwards, inviting more businesses that cater to the wealthy.
• Median Rent: Higher rent is a leading cause for low-income families to move out of an area.
• Population: Growing populations are an overall indicator of gentrification because there is likely to be a reason for why large amounts of people would want to move into an already densely-packed area like NYC.
• Racial Diversity Index: The RDI is the probability that two randomly chosen people in a given geographic area will be of a different race. Decreasing levels of diversity in a neighborhood have historically been associated with a rise in gentrification.

It’s no debate that gentrification is transforming New York City everyday. The question, however, is whether or not gentrification is hurting or improving the lives of the City’s 8 million inhabitants. This question has been the source of endless debate as city officials try to decide on the best urban legislation for their constituents. To add productive commentary to this debate, we aim to show the impact of gentrification based on different key metrics that are indicators of gentrification. This project will serve to educate the common public about gentrification and hopefully inspire others to understand the impact of gentrification in their own communities.

Our Process Book

A lot of our knowledge about gentrification has been based off the paper: "Dealing with Neighborhood Change: A primer on gentrification and policy changes" by Maureen Kennedy and Paul Leonard.

In this paper, they defined gentrification as "the process by which higher income households displace lower income residents of a neighborhood, changing the essential character and flavor of that neighborhood."

This definition can be broken down into three parts:

1. The first part involves gentrification requiring the displacement of lower-income residents from their neighborhoods. There are two types of displacement. The first kind, called Involuntary Displacement, refers to when the original residents of a neighborhood are forced to move out due to rising rent, increases in taxes and living costs, etc. The second kind of displacement is called Exclusionary Displacement, where changes in a neighborhood prevent future lower-income citizens from moving in in the first place.
2. Secondly, gentrification has a physical as well as socioeconomic component that results in the upgrading of housing stock in the neighborhood. This translates into more expensive housing as well as pricier surrounding shopping centers and storefronts.
3. Thirdly, gentrification results in the changed character, or "flavor" of a neighborhood. In other words, gentrification is not only attracting higher income households who replace lower income households in the neighborhood; it is attracting a sufficiently large number such that the unique social fabric of the neighborhood is changed.