Understanding Gentrification and Commercial Displacement in Neighborhoods across the U.S.

This study examines what types of organizations are displaced from gentrifying areas and what happens to these organizations after displacement by collecting historical and contemporary data on the geography of local community organizations in the United States. Neighborhood change can be tremendously disruptive to residents and the community organizations that serve them. While much research examines residents who are displaced from their homes due to processes such as gentrification, little scholarship focuses on the displacement of local community organizations in areas undergoing neighborhood change. Community organizations promote civil society, provide needed goods and services, and enhance the health of communities, all of which can be lost when community organizations are displaced. Data from this study will be used to examine the connections between neighborhood change and the locations where community organizations open, close, or move over time. This research will combine geographic information science (GIS) and statistical analysis to digitize and geocode a comprehensive guidebook of local community organizations that serve demographic populations in the United States. The guidebook has been in continuous publication since 1973 and includes the locations and organizational types of hundreds of thousands of local community organizations. Digitizing and geocoding these data will provide an unparalleled look at the spatial evolution of community organizations displaced by gentrification. Analyses that come out of this project will advance knowledge of urban studies, organizational dynamics, and community well-being. The project will culminate in the creation of an interactive website that will enable members of the public to visualize trends in organizational displacement and anticipate what might happen to community organizations in gentrifying neighborhoods in the future. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.