Beyond Gentrification: Housing Loss, Poverty, and the Geography of Displacement

Abstract We assess the relationship between gentrification and a key form of displacement: eviction. Drawing on over six million court cases filed in 72 of the largest metropolitan areas across the United States between 2000 and 2016, we show that most evictions occurred in low-income neighborhoods that did not gentrify. Over time, eviction rates decreased more in gentrifying neighborhoods than in comparable low-income neighborhoods. Results were robust to multiple specifications and alternative measures of gentrification. The findings of this study imply that focusing on gentrifying neighborhoods as the primary site of displacement risks overlooking most instances of forced removal. Disadvantaged communities experienced displacement pressures when they underwent gentrification and when they did not. Eviction is not a passing trend in low-income neighborhoods—one that comes and goes as gentrification accelerates and decelerates—but a durable component of neighborhood disadvantage.