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Suburban Gentrification: Residential Redevelopment and Neighborhood Change, A Case Study of the Inner-Ring Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, 2000-2010 Author: Suzanne L. Charles Dissertation School: The President and Fellows of Harvard College Pages: 234 Publication Date: December 2010 Availability: Access Number: 10860 Abstract: "Suburban gentrification" of older, inner-ring suburbs is an emerging phenomenon that has the potential to transform American metropolitan regions. It may foreshadow shifts in household location patterns and changes in the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods, similar to the examples of classical gentrification observed in central cities. Gentrification is most visible through capital reinvestment in the built environment. This dissertation examines one particular type of reinvestment--the incremental, private sector, residential redevelopment process, in which older single-family housing is demolished and replaced with larger single-family housing. This dissertation poses the overarching question: Why is this type of redevelopment more likely to occur in some suburban neighborhoods than others? The question is examined through a study of residential redevelopment in 128 older, inner-ring suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. I employ mixed methods, including quantitative regression analysis and spatial statistical techniques, as well as qualitative semi-structured interviews and field observation. The dissertation begins with an empirical analysis of the spatial and spatio-temporal aspects of suburban single-family residential redevelopment. Then, regression modeling is used to examine the property and neighborhood characteristics that are significantly associated with the likelihood that a property is redeveloped. Findings reveal that high rates of redevelopment occurred in very high-income as well as moderate-income neighborhoods. Smaller houses, as well as properties with lower floor area-to-lot size ratios and lower ratios of their value to that of their neighborhood, are more likely to be redeveloped. The median property value of a neighborhood does not have a large effect on weather a property is redeveloped, but neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents were significantly less likely to experience redevelopment. School district quality was very highly associated with redevelopment; the odds of redevelopment for properties located in the highest-ranked school districts are 2.5 times that of those that are not. The spatio-temporal analysis reveals that redevelopment often began in areas with high property values, and as house prices rose rapidly through the first half of the decade, it expanded into adjacent, less affluent neighborhoods, retracting again at the end of the decade. |
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