Do gentrifying neighbourhoods have less community? Evidence from Philadelphia

One of the more detrimental effects of gentrification is the potential for a decreased sense of neighbourhood community. Systematic analysis of the effect of gentrification on communities has been limited. This study investigated how an individual's sense of connection to neighbourhood community, as measured by trust, belongingness and sense of cooperation, was influenced by their residence in a gentrifying neighbourhood. We utilised hierarchical linear models with individual data from the 2014/2015 Public Health Management Corporation's Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey and neighbourhood data from the 2000 Decennial Census and 2010-2014 American Community Survey. We find that gentrification overall has a negative relation with neighbourhood community, but this relationship varied by the racial/ethnic turnover underlying the changes taking place in these neighbourhoods. Specifically, we find that gentrification marked by increases in Whites and decreases in non-Whites had no measurable relation with neighbourhood community; that gentrification marked by increases in non-Whites alone had a positive effect on neighbourhood community for Black and Hispanic residents; and that gentrifying neighbourhoods which experienced an increase in both Whites and non-Whites had a negative overall relation with neighbourhood community.