Attitudes Toward Racial Outgroups During Gentrification

Gentrification is a pressing concern for many lower income neighborhoods around the country. However, despite voluminous evidence of the economic and health impacts of gentrification, we know less about how gentrification impacts attitudes. I investigate whether gentrification of Black neighborhoods is associated with more negative attitudinal evaluations of the racial group of their gentrifiers, and whether these attitudes are the same for gentrifiers of different racial groups. I construct a merged dataset combining individual responses from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Survey, ZIP code level contextual data from the American Community Survey, and an original dataset of restaurant prices and reviews. In general, in-migration of non-Black newcomers does not lead to more negative attitudes toward these newcomers’ racial group. White-led gentrification of Black neighborhoods may lead to more negative views toward Whites, but only when accompanied by substantial rent increases. Latino-led and Asian-led gentrification are not associated with similar effects.