Op-Ed: Time to Ditch the Old Data Used to Separate Gentrification From Displacement

Norman Oder asks readers to question the evidence traditionally cited in arguments that attempt to disprove displacement as a consequence of gentrification.

1 minute read

January 8, 2018, 6:00 AM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Gentrification

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Two studies frequently cited to argue down connections between gentrification and displacement might be too out of date to be reliable, according to an article by Norman Oder. Oder's term for the state of two of the most frequently cited studies: "glaringly stale."

In fact, placed in a contemporary context, these two studies might do more to verify a connection between gentrification and displacement, rather than refute it, argues Oder.

The studies in question are "Gentrification and Displacement: New York City in the 1990s" [pdf] by Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi, published in the Journal of the American Planning Association in 2004, and a follow up paper by Freeman titled "Displacement Or Succession? Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods" and published by Urban Affairs Review in 2005.

Media outlets as widely followed as CNN, as recently as 2015, have cited the second article as reasons to doubt the displacement effects of gentrification. Yet the study, published in 2005, uses data from 1986 to 1999. Oder suggests that the conclusions of the study might no longer be valid in 2018.

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