Are We Asking the Wrong Question about Where Gentrification Happens?

For the most part, when we discuss gentrification we talk about neighborhoods.  Neighborhood X got a yoga studio, or Neighborhood Y got a new Whole Foods.  If multiple neighborhoods gentrify at the same time, we might also talk about its affects on the city as a whole.  But, the city line is usually the spatial perimeter that bounds our discussion. 

But, what if we are asking the wrong question?  What if gentrification is actually a process that affects the nation as a whole, creating gentrifying cities and disinvested cities instead of  gentrifying neighborhoods and disinvested ones?  

At this point, you might be thinking--"What you talkin' about Willis?"  

Well, according to a new study by Rebecca Diamond highlighted on the Washington Post's wonkblog, that is what is happening.  The dual affects we often associate with gentrification--investment in some areas and disinvestment in others--are are national in scope.  To use a locally inspired metaphor, some cities are like Logan Circle while others are like Langley Park. 

Instead of income, however, Diamond uses education to measure gentrification on the national scale, with the key metric being college degrees.

Turns out,  people with college degrees tend to flock to places where there are lots of other college grads.  Over time, you get a sort of path dependency.  A city manages to attract college grads, which in turn attracts more college grads.  This trend also puts upward pressure on salaries, which in turn drive an increase in restaurants, museums, and other cultural fare. Streets get safer too. San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC are good examples of this trend.  In the early 1990s, for example, DC recorded over 400 murders.  Last year, it recorded 103, even though the city is much larger today. 

On the flip side, places that don't attract college grads see their relative, and in some cases real status decline.  Their wages are lower and they have fewer amenities.  Crime takes a turn for the worse.  Toledo, Detroit, and Baton Rouge are good examples.


I think Diamond's work is fascinating (if ultimately depressing).  It means Americans are becoming even more segregated (in this case along class lines).   

But, none of this means local-scale gentrification will go away anytime soon.  It is easy to look at 14th Street in DC and see the DMV as a booming metropolis full of good jobs, good eats, plentiful entertainment, and safe streets.  But, someone still has to work in the low wage jobs that clean the office buildings where those good jobs are located, bus the tables at the fancy see-and-be-seen restaurants, wash the beer glasses recycled many times over in hipster bars, and police the drunks that come out of them at night.  Low wage workers aren't teleported in for the job.  They live in the DMV too, and the growing gap between their salaries and those of the folks noshing at Le Diplomate continue to leave its mark.

If you want to see how this plays out in your own world, ask the person who cleans your office building where she lives the next time you get the chance.  Chances are she lives in a suburban, and quite likely exurban location.  By the way, when I asked this question at my workplace, the answer was Gaithersburg.