Gentrification

Does gentrification reduce gang homicide? Gentrification is the process by which distressed inner-city areas are transformed by an influx of new businesses or higher-income residents. Gentrification advocates argue that the economic boost will revitalize the area, provide new opportunities, and reduce crime. Is this assertion true? Smith (2014) collected data from 1994 to 2005 on all 342 neighborhoods in Chicago with the intention of determining whether gentrification over time reduces gang- motivated homicide. Smith measured gentrification in three ways: Recent increases in neighborhood residents’ socioeconomic statuses, increases in coffee shops, and demolition of public housing. The author predicted that the first two would suppress gang homicide and that the last one would increase it; even though public-housing demolition is supposed to reduce crime, it can also create turmoil, residential displacement, and conflict among former public-housing residents and residents of surrounding properties. Smith found support for all three hypotheses. Socioeconomic-status increases were strongly related to reductions in gang-motivated homicides, coffee-shop presence was weakly related to reductions, and public-housing demolition was robustly associated with increases.