Neighborhood change and crime across stages of gentrification in Los Angeles

This study examines the relationship between different stages of gentrification and changes in property and violent crime between 2000 and 2018. We use the Urban Displacement Project’s typology of neighborhood transformations to identify four specific stages of the gentrification process and estimate spatial-errors models, controlling for changes in other neighborhood characteristics. We use residual change scores to estimate greater- or less-than-anticipated changes in neighborhood characteristics. Our findings uncover nuanced differences across the gentrification stages and crime type, with the largest effects at the earlier disinvestment or gentrification stage, and mostly for violent crime. Marginal effect models reveal gentrification stage condition the relationship between changes in poverty, female-headed households, and racial/ethnic composition and crime change. These findings underscore the importance of examining gentrification as a conditioning process when studying neighborhood crime dynamics.