Gentrified Housing Pricing

Trinity Baldwin, De La Salle Institute, Class of 2027, Spring 2025

What is gentrification and how does it impact communities? According to Jesse Mumm, a professor at DePaul University, gentrification is “when outside forces of investment speculate on a particular neighborhood or town and the movement of an outside population inflates the value and causes the displacement of residents in the neighborhood”. Curran Winifred, also a DePaul University professor, adds that gentrification often pushes people out of their neighborhoods by increasing the value of housing. Winifred explained, “I don’t think you could find a study anywhere that found that gentrification made housing affordable. The whole point is that developers, landlords, and investors come into parts of the city… and then make those improvements to increase prices.” 

In research highlighted in the Chicago Booth Review, researchers explained how the demolition of housing led to significant demographic change and gentrification in communities that had experienced the demolition. “... The areas saw a substantial increase in the white population, along with growth in median household income and median rents, the researchers write. Property values increased by 9–20 percent in areas where demolished units made up more than 50 percent of housing stock. Across the city, rent prices rose by an average of about 2 percent, while rents in neighborhoods nearest to the demolitions saw average prices increase by almost 14 percent” (Kacik, 2023).

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, NCRC, conducted a study from 2000-2013 about gentrification. “Displacement of black and Hispanic residents accompanied gentrification in many places and impacted at least 135,000 people in our study period. In Washington, D.C., 20,000 black residents were displaced, and in Portland, Oregon, 13 percent of the black community was displaced over the decade” (Richardson et al., 2019). Parts of my family have experienced the effects of gentrification because of price increases. The people of the community can’t afford housing, causing them to lose their houses, become homeless, or have to move into a lesser quality neighborhood. Gentrification often has a negative effect on the African American and Hispanic communities. Gentrification also causes the increase in housing and rent, which pushes people of color out of their neighborhoods into lower-quality neighborhoods. 

Work Cited 

1. https://ncrc.org/gentrification/

2. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/12/01/gentrification-disproportionately-affects-minorities

3. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40572-021-00309-5

4. Jesse Mumm. Professor at DePaul University 

5. Curran Winifred. Professor at DePaul University