What role does race and class play in gentrification?

Residents and anti-gentrification activists tend to fear gentrification will lead to displacement by white residents while some experts believe it's an optimistic sign of an economic boom that would enable people to rise up economically.

A new USC study of census data shows that nationally, neighborhood ascent—a broad definition of gentrification—is associated with racial or ethnic change. In a nutshell, the researchers conclude that gentrifying neighborhoods become more white, altering minority communities.

"When white neighborhoods experience socioeconomic ascent, they retain whites. And when minority neighborhoods experience it, they become more white," said Ann Owens, the study's lead author and a sociologist at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

"Our study indicates that socioeconomic ascent is actually perpetuating existing racial inequality within and between neighborhoods," Owens said.

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