Introduction

When poverty and other forms of disadvantage are spatially concentrated, as they are in many urban neighborhoods, their negative impact on child mental health and functioning are exacerbated (for reviews, see Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000; Massey and Denton 1993). Disadvantaged neighborhoods place children at increased risk for a variety of stressful events, including crime and physical and social disorder (Sampson et al. 2002), violence (Guerra et al. 1995), drug use (Kaplan-Sanoff et al. 1991), substandard housing (Attar et al. 1994), and child maltreatment (Garbarino 1992). In turn, neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood stressors are linked to children’s school performance and behavior problems (e.g., Attar et al. 1994; Beyers et al. 2003; Dubow et al. 1997). Neighborhood disadvantage is related to child outcomes over and above family poverty (Brooks-Gunn et al.), suggesting that some poor children are at risk for compromised outcomes simply by virtue of where their families reside.

Of course, disadvantaged neighborhoods are not all the same, and there are often more differences within neighborhoods than between them (Cook et al. 1997). Low-income neighborhoods vary in terms of both risk factors (e.g., crime rates, concerns about safety) and protective factors (e.g., neighborhood social processes, supportive parenting; Chavis and Wandersman 1990; Gorman-Smith et al. 2000). Research on resiliency provides countless examples that children in low-income neighborhoods can and do thrive, particularly when supported by their families, teachers, and neighbors (Furstenberg et al. 1999). Unfortunately, protective factors are sometimes undermined in high-risk neighborhoods (e.g., Caughy et al. 2003; Gonzales et al. 1996). One wonders if we are asking too much of families when we expect individual- and family-level factors to single-handedly offset the consequences of neighborhood risk.

To alleviate problems associated with impoverished neighborhoods and enhance existing protective factors, academics and policymakers have argued that urban poverty first needs to be deconcentrated (Quercia and Galster 1997; Wilson 1987). The deconcentration of poverty involves mixing households with different incomes, which many expect to reduce or ameliorate these risks. Indeed, the presence of affluent or middle-class neighbors in a neighborhood is most often found to influence children’s cognitive, educational, and behavioral outcomes (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993). Deconcentration presumably allows poor children to take advantage of the beneficial features associated with both wealthier places (e.g., child-centered institutional resources) and affluent neighbors. Unfortunately, poverty has become more concentrated in recent years as has the “spatial sorting” of neighborhood residents by race, education, occupation, and income (Sampson and Sharkey 2008).

The deconcentration of poverty (that is, creating mixed-income neighborhoods) can take place in three ways. First, poor households can become less poor through policies and programs, such as business attraction, job training, and income supports. In these cases, poor families continue to reside in their neighborhoods with improved income and living standards and pass the associated benefits along to their children. One potential, unintended side effect is that wealthier, once-poor families may leave the neighborhood, further concentrating poverty for those who remain. Second, poor households may relocate to wealthier areas. Although “barriers to entry” (e.g., higher rents, discriminatory attitudes) prevent poor households from finding housing in such places, some public programs (e.g., Moving to Opportunity) seek to create income-mixedness by moving poor households to less poor locales. Third, wealthier households relocate to low-income neighborhoods, a strategy popularly known as “gentrification.”

From a government perspective, gentrification is attractive because it is not a policy per se, but primarily a market-driven process or, in some cases, a joint public–private venture (e.g., HOPE VI) that motivates individuals, and not governments, to shoulder the costs of neighborhood upgrading. Gentrification appears to be the most prevalent means of deconcentrating poverty in recent years, both because of the lack of funds for urban economic development and targeted residential mobility programs and the simultaneous increase in wage polarization and housing prices that have led high-income households to seek out housing options in previously poor neighborhoods. Recent evidence of gentrification in major North American cities abounds (Kennedy and Leonard 2001; Wyly and Hammel 1999, 2004).

Gentrification and Urban Children’s Well-Being

A developmental-ecological framework (Bronfenbrenner 1986) posits that children are impacted not only by their individual skills and resources, but also by the contexts in which they live, play, and learn. Gentrification is relevant to the burgeoning literature documenting neighborhood effects on school readiness, academic achievement, and dropout rates; externalizing behavior problems and delinquency; and adolescent childbearing (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000). Although neighborhood effects are small—accounting for 5–10 percent of the variance in child outcome (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn)—”failure to acknowledge how neighborhood conditions might shape, enhance or constrain processes critical to child development may mean overlooking key factors that differentiate successful and unsuccessful low-income, urban children” (Roosa et al. 2003, p. 56).

Neighborhood-child outcome links are increasingly documented, but inquiry into how gentrification itself affects children is limited. Theory and research on gentrification traditionally have fallen in the realm of sociology, urban planning, and geography, where the unit of analysis is the neighborhood and not the individual. Moreover, despite the burgeoning neighborhood literature in psychology, studies on gentrification specifically are almost non-existent. This paper is a multi-disciplinary effort to cull the literatures on gentrification, neighborhoods, and child development to map out pathways by which gentrification might impact children (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Model depicting hypothesized relations among gentrification, institutional resources and collective socialization, individual- and family-level stressors and supports, and child outcomes

Full size image

We focus on two indicators of gentrification: the in-migration of affluent neighbors and the displacement of low-income residents. These factors trigger the most widespread changes in a neighborhood and its institutional and interpersonal resources. Moreover, as we will show, the neighborhood literature supports the position that an influx of affluent neighbors may well be the primary potential benefit of gentrification for low-income residents, whereas displacement may well be its most substantial risk. The neighborhood literature identifies two neighborhood-level mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence child outcomes: institutional resources, or specific institutional agents and resources provided in community settings, such as schools and recreation centers; and collective socialization (comprised of reciprocated exchange, intergenerational closure, and informal social control), whereby neighbors serve as role models for and provide support to parents and youth (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997; Jencks and Mayer 1990; Roosa et al. 2003). We also consider the potential effects of multiple transitions and the quality of the receiving neighborhood on displaced families. These factors are expected to be associated with intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual stressors and supports, such as support for education and employment, parenting quality, children’s peer relationships, and family stress (see Fig. 1). These links serve as a bridge between neighborhood change and how families experience these changes and identify opportunities for intervention (Roosa et al.).

At the outset, we take no position on whether gentrification is a positive or negative influence on low-income children, families, or neighborhoods, nor do we advocate its use as a way to better children’s lives. The end state of gentrification may be desirable (e.g., more income-diverse communities, less racial segregation, more resources in disinvested communities), but historically, the process has been problematic in that low-income families have received few of its benefits while disproportionately shouldering its burdens. Instead, we propose a framework for understanding its potential consequences (both positive and negative) and the conditions under which they may come to pass. A focus on the mechanisms through which gentrification impacts poor children can inform public policy and community interventions and may identify missed opportunities to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of gentrification for low-income families.

Defining Gentrification

Gentrification is an ambiguously defined yet highly controversial process of neighborhood change, generally identifiable by three characteristics. First, before change occurs, the condition of a gentrifying neighborhood is deficient relative to other parts of an urban area in terms of median household income, aggregate property value, and crime and vacancy rates, and has “suffered from systematic outmigration, disinvestment, or neglect in the midst of rapid economic growth and suburbanization” (Wyly and Hammel 1999, p. 716). These neighborhoods, prior to the change, often were predominantly comprised of ethnic minorities. Second, households of a higher socio-economic status than pre-change residents move into the area. New residents of gentrifying neighborhoods may be part of a “back to the city” movement (i.e., coming from the suburbs) or relocating from other parts of the same city (Nelson 1988), and often are white-collar professionals (“gentry”) and European-Americans (Kennedy and Leonard 2001; see Pattillo-McCoy 1997, and Boyd 2000, for a discussion of African American gentrification). Third, pre-change residents are involuntarily displaced. Most definitions converge on the recognition that an increased demand for a neighborhood by wealthier households creates upward pressure on land values there, which leads to rising housing costs, physical redevelopment, and residential upgrading. This can lead to higher property tax bills for the existing owners and evictions for renters, which is the primary public policy concern. Clearly, gentrification is not a static state of being. It is a dynamic process of change from one neighborhood state to another.

Gentrification is often considered an “I’ll-know-it-when-I-see it” phenomenon. In residential areas, one can observe the demolition of older homes to make way for larger, more modern structures, and advertisements for expensive condominiums and loft apartments. In commercial areas, trendy restaurants and galleries, boutiques and upscale national chain stores take the place of more modest businesses that catered to low-income residents and ethnic and racial minorities. Based on these physical characteristics, neighborhoods such as Wicker Park in Chicago, Harlem in New York City, and the Mission in San Francisco are often mentioned as having gentrified. Although these visible symbols carry weight, several researchers have attempted to systematically measure and categorize gentrification across and within metropolitan regions. They identify census tracts where change in indicators such as owner-occupied housing and residents with a college degree exceeds a predetermined threshold (Lipton 1977; Nelson 1988). In New York City during the 1990s, for example, gentrifying neighborhoods such as Fort Greene and Harlem experienced a faster increase in the share of White residents, average monthly rents, educational attainment, and median income of residents than the rest of the city (Freeman and Braconi 2004). This method is problematic due to difficulties periodizing change and the fact that such measures may identify neighborhoods that never experienced any sustained decline. Wyly and Hammel (1999) add non-traditional data sources (e.g., mortgage loans for the purchase of single-family homes), conduct field surveys of neighborhoods that were identified as gentrifying by the press and local officials, and use multivariate discriminant analysis to confirm the districts identified in field surveys. They find that gentrifying neighborhoods accounted for 22 percent of the populations of major cities in the 1990s and that they grew at a considerably faster rate than suburban communities during this time. The fact that almost a quarter of the populations of major metropolitan areas might experience gentrification suggests the need for further investigation of this phenomenon and its potential impact on child development.

Affluent Neighbors

The presence of middle-class, affluent or professional-managerial residents in a neighborhood consistently has been linked to positive academic and psychological outcomes, particularly for adolescents (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997). There are two primary ways in which affluent neighbors are believed to impact child outcomes: (1) by increasing high-quality institutional resources for children; and (2) through collective socialization, or the provision of role models, social support, and/or informal social control within the neighborhood.

Affluent Neighbors and Institutional Resources

Neighborhood affluence impacts the quality of community settings available to families, such as schools, child care, and recreational opportunities (Jencks and Mayer 1990). The relationships noted between affluent neighbors and child cognitive and academic outcomes likely are mediated by such institutions (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000), but most studies have not examined neighborhood and institutional effects simultaneously to determine whether, for example, school-mediated neighborhood effects exist. Neighborhood income is associated with youth involvement in school, community, and religious activities, an association that likely is mediated by the availability of these neighborhood resources (Cantillon 2006).

How would an increase in affluent neighbors affect the availability and quality of such institutional resources? Although low-income residents can and do advocate for community improvements (Chavis and Wandersman 1990), significant barriers often exist, including both political marginalization of the needs of low-income communities and a lack of revenue to fund such improvements. Affluent neighbors, relative to low-income residents, may be better able to secure high-quality services for neighborhood children, including their own (Fischel 2001). Affluent households are more likely to complain about suboptimal public services, and local governments may assign their complaints a higher priority than those of lower-income households with fewer political connections and fewer opportunities to leave the area. Moreover, wealthier residents’ greater contributions to the tax base can help fund such improvements. If they have children, affluent neighbors may focus community improvement efforts on improving schools, parks, and recreation services. If neighborhood resources are improved, then low-income families who are able to continue to reside in gentrifying areas may benefit.

In addition, income mixing in schools has resulted in impressive gains in achievement for children from low-income families, largely through the enhanced environmental supports available in more middle-class schools, including unique educational programming, greater parental involvement, higher quality teachers, and the deconcentration of educational risk (Black 1996; Hausman and Goldring 2000; Kahlenberg 2000, 2001). Mixed-income schools often evolve because of school choice plans (e.g., vouchers, charter schools) or magnet programs. Unfortunately, these strategies share a variety of disadvantages, including competition for limited slots, the need to transport children long distances, and the concomitant lack of support for neighborhood schools. One potential benefit of gentrification is that it can remedy these disadvantages by creating and sustaining high-quality, mixed-income, neighborhood schools that would be attractive to parents across the income spectrum. If mixed-income schools can provide enhanced educational supports to its students, low-income children are expected to benefit in terms of their educational and employment outcomes.

Often, however, an influx of affluent neighbors reduces the number and quality of institutional resources available to poor children. New households tend to be upper-income empty-nesters or young couples with few or no children, and the resulting depopulation of neighborhood children can trigger a reduction in child-centered services for low-income residents in the neighborhood. For example, researchers found that between 1995 and 2000, enrollment in Chicago public elementary schools dropped 18 percent in three gentrifying areas (Lake View, West Town and the Near South Side) while it rose 13 percent in the rest of the city (Catalyst 2003). Moreover, affluent households with children, especially European American families, often do not choose to send their children to local public schools. In the three Chicago areas studied, the European American population grew by 14 percent, while European American public school enrollment dropped by 24 percent. These schools have experienced reductions in supplemental funding triggered by school depopulation that have prompted lay-offs of teachers and the elimination of programs, such as the arts and physical education. Several schools, particularly those near former public housing sites, have been shuttered (Smith and Stovall 2007). Similarly, if neighborhood resources, such as parks, are viewed as being of low quality or unsafe, affluent residents may simply choose to use better or safer resources in other neighborhoods or to pay for the use of privately-provided services (e.g., Gymboree).

Even if affluent neighbors are able to secure high-quality institutional resources for the neighborhood, several barriers to accessing these resources may exist for poor children. Due to the limited number of slots in many high-quality school programs and/or recreational activities, substantial competition might exist for these resources between the children of affluent residents and the children of poor residents (Jencks and Mayer 1990). In an effort to retain upper-income households, for example, the Chicago Public Schools passed an initiative that required its 23 magnet schools to reserve a larger proportion of slots for neighborhood residents. All but one of the schools was located in gentrifying areas near the Central Business District (Catalyst 1998). To the extent that slots in high-quality programs are reserved for the children of wealthy residents, poor or ethnic minority residents in affluent neighborhoods may ultimately have fewer or lower-quality resources available to them than affluent or European American children living in the same neighborhoods (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000; Smith and Stovall 2007).

Implications for Public Policy and Intervention Research

In low-income neighborhoods, public resources such as schools and parks are often under-funded and declining in quality. Gentrification can help offset such decline if the tax revenues generated by increasing home values are channeled back into the neighborhood and if affluent neighbors use their economic and political clout to advocate for higher-quality institutional resources. A necessary first step is that affluent neighbors actually use these public services. At a minimum, such use can offset depopulation that often leads to school closings and program cutbacks and can serve as a “needs assessment” of sorts, a way by which affluent neighbors can become informed about the condition of public services that can later guide advocacy efforts. These possibilities are complicated by questions of sequencing and tipping points. How good do public resources need to be before affluent parents are willing to encourage their children’s use of those resources? How many affluent families have to use such services before public officials and planners are interested in making improvements to recruit and retain them? Improving public goods reduces costs for affluent families (e.g., private schools) and increases the access of low-income families to high-quality institutional resources. That said, the historical consequences of gentrification suggest that extra precautions should be taken to ensure that poor children are not excluded from programming intended to attract and retain affluent families and that low-income residents have a say in their neighborhood’s future (Smith and Stovall 2007).

To the extent that middle- and low-income children are co-learners in the same schools, it presents an opportunity to create mixed-ability groups in classrooms and to subject all children to a challenging academic curriculum. In this context, both affluent and low-income children can learn from their higher-achieving peers of both class backgrounds. Although mixing students from different backgrounds and learning styles can be difficult, cooperative learning models that effectively bridge racial and cultural differences and enhance respect for different levels and types of learning are available to guide such efforts (Aronson and Bridgeman 1979; Aronson and Patnoe 1997). There is a clear need for school research to examine what makes some mixed-income classrooms more successful than others. What sort of curricular changes and teacher training is necessary to ensure that any student who is struggling academically receives the academic support necessary to succeed in the context of an academically rigorous curriculum?

Affluent Neighbors and Collective Socialization

Theories of social capital (Coleman 1988) and collective efficacy (Sampson et al. 1999) posit that neighborhood characteristics impact children indirectly through the nature of social relationships and the extent to which residents can capitalize on those relationships toward a common good. There are several ways in which collective efficacy can contribute to the “neighborhood context of childrearing,” (Sampson et al.): (a) reciprocated exchange, or the exchange of advice, material goods, and information about childrearing, (b) intergenerational closure, or the ways in which adults and children in a community are linked to one another (comprised of both parent-to-parent links and neighbor-to-child links), and (c) informal social control, or the expectation that neighbors will intervene on behalf of children and regulate adolescent peer group activities.

These types of collective efficacy have been linked to improved child outcomes, particularly behavior problems (Elliott et al. 1996; Sampson 1997; but see Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996, for an exception). To illustrate, youth living in inner-city neighborhoods where residents felt personally imperiled or where social ties were lacking were more likely than those living in similarly disadvantaged neighborhoods with functioning social processes to engage in delinquent behaviors (Gorman-Smith et al. 2000). Collective efficacy also is associated with academic achievement (Carbonaro 1998; Fletcher et al. 2006), pro-social competence (Elliott et al. 1996; Fletcher et al.), and lower levels of adolescent depression (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996).

Interestingly, the benefits of collective efficacy for low-income, African American families may be limited to mixed-income neighborhoods. Caughy et al. (2003) found that knowing your neighbors was associated with lower levels of child mental health problems for poor families in mixed-income neighborhoods, but with higher levels of child mental health problems for poor families in disadvantaged neighborhoods. In sum, knowing your neighbors served as a protective factor in relatively advantaged areas and as a risk factor in disadvantaged areas. These results highlight how concentrated disadvantage can undermine (in fact, overturn) the presumably protective effects of normative developmental processes, such as knowing your neighbors. The fact that intergenerational closure was associated with positive mental health outcomes for low-income, African American children living in mixed-income neighborhoods is of particular importance for the study of gentrification. It is not clear whether these positive effects reflect the deconcentration of neighborhood risk that facilitates positive closure relationships or the likelihood that when low-income parents reach out for help, their neighbors will be in a better position to help them.

Gentrification, Demographic Shifts in Neighborhoods, and Collective Socialization

Gentrification entails dramatic changes in the demographic composition of a neighborhood, which can impact the development of collective socialization. Shaw and McKay (1942/1969) argued that three neighborhood factors—low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility—lead to the disruption of community social organization. Concentrated affluence fosters the development of intergenerational closure and reciprocated exchange, and concentrated disadvantage disrupts informal social control (Elliott et al. 1996; Sampson 1997; Sampson et al. 1999; Sampson and Groves 1989). Ethnic heterogeneity may undermine collective efficacy because it can complicate communication among neighbors and consensus about appropriate behavior, particularly if the cultures represented differ in their norms and values or do not share a common language (Sampson et al. 1997). Indeed, ethnic heterogeneity has been linked to unsupervised peer groups in a neighborhood (Sampson and Groves). Finally, residential mobility likely undermines collective efficacy because it takes time for new residents to become integrated into the social fabric of their new neighborhood (Sampson et al.). Residential stability, in contrast, is positively related to local friendship networks, community social organization, intergenerational closure, reciprocated exchange, and the informal social control of children (Cantillon 2006; Sampson et al.; Sampson and Groves). In sum, gentrification could disrupt closely connected social networks in low-income neighborhoods simply by virtue of the demographic shifts it involves.

Parenting Support

Disadvantaged neighborhoods impact parents as well as children. Poverty, high-risk neighborhood contexts, and their associated stressors can strain parenting skills, whereas neighborhood quality can support high-quality parenting. Neighborhood stability has been linked to greater parental support and monitoring of youth (Cantillon 2006). Neighborhood quality can shape parenting beliefs and behaviors according to the demands of the context (Furstenberg 1993; Jarrett 1995) and neighborhood norms (Caughy et al. 2001) or modify the role of parenting in shaping child outcomes. For example, high-quality parenting, and particularly parental monitoring, has been shown to be particularly important in neighborhoods with high levels of disadvantage and instability and low levels of affluence and community organization (Beyers et al. 2003; Gorman-Smith et al. 2000; Pettit et al. 1999). Restrictive control has been associated with positive cognitive and academic outcomes in riskier neighborhoods, but worse outcomes in safer neighborhoods (e.g., Baldwin et al. 1990). In other words, and not surprisingly, high-quality parenting is most important in neighborhood contexts that are riskier and offer less neighborly support.

We posit that the parent-to-parent aspects of intergenerational closure (including reciprocated exchange) impact child mental health indirectly by providing social support to parents, which in turn, promotes higher quality parenting. Social support promotes effective parenting through the provision of information about parenting and resources for children, instrumental assistance with household management and child care, emotional support, and social expectations for appropriate parental behavior (e.g., Andresen and Telleen 1992). Social support also can promote parental mental health and buffer the impact of economic hardship on parenting (e.g., Simons et al. 1993).

Neighbors can and do provide the types of support that have been linked to high-quality parenting (for a review, see Unger and Wandersman 1985). Because of their geographical proximity, neighbors may be uniquely positioned to do so, particularly for low-income mothers who have fewer opportunities to make social contacts outside the immediate neighborhood (Cochran and Gunnarsson 1990). Gorman-Smith et al. (2000) found that neighborhoods differed with respect to social organization (including sense of belonging, support, and involvement) and that these social processes emerge even in low-income neighborhoods characterized by higher crime and resident concerns about safety. The authors identified three types of low-income neighborhoods: lower-risk neighborhoods with low rates of social organization (38% of neighborhoods sampled); higher-risk neighborhoods with low rates of social organization (22%), and higher-risk neighborhoods with high rates of social organization (39%). Unfortunately, not all low-income neighborhoods are well-equipped to provide adequate levels of social support to its residents. In particular, neighborhood homogeneity and residential stability are related to more frequent helping among neighbors (Unger and Wandersman 1985). Gentrification alters these demographic characteristics in a neighborhood, and could lead to less frequent helping among neighbors.

The quantity and quality of interaction among residents with children is of central concern to understanding neighborly support around parenting. For example, 76% of African American residents living in disadvantaged neighborhoods reported knowing a successful parent, and this factor emerged as the strongest predictor of psychological sense of community in the neighborhood (Brodsky et al. 1999). Indeed, parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods who do not know a successful parent may socially isolate themselves and their children as a way to protect the family from neighborhood risk. Brodsky (1996) found that among single mothers in low-income, physically dangerous neighborhoods, negative psychological sense of community served as a protective factor. Interestingly, having children in the home was associated with less neighborly interaction in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Brodsky et al.), but more neighborly interaction (across renters and owners, and across income levels) in a mixed-income community (Kleit 2005). One might argue that when institutional resources are stronger and risk is deconcentrated, parents are more willing to seek out other neighborhood parents who share their values, both in disadvantaged communities and across income levels and ethnicity in mixed-income communities.

Affluent neighbors may be uniquely positioned to share information about child-centered resources with low-income parents. By virtue of having more economic resources, affluent neighbors can more easily access educationally enriching materials and information about child development, and perhaps share this information with low-income parents. By virtue of their experience with community institutional resources, affluent neighbors could also provide information about developmental resources in the neighborhood (e.g., public libraries, park district programs) and how to navigate the school system. Sharing information about parenting, however, may prove to be more problematic. There are questions about whether the same parenting strategies are effective across low- vs. high-risk neighborhood contexts (e.g., Baldwin et al. 1990; Gonzales et al. 1996). Also, it is unclear whether low-income parents will turn to neighbors whose ethnic and class backgrounds are so different from their own when seeking parenting advice. Of course, to the extent that parenting advice is experienced as supportive and relevant across income and ethnic lines, both affluent and low-income neighbors could benefit from sharing parenting perspectives and receiving parenting support.

Role Modeling and Support Around Education and Employment

Neighbors also play an important role in supporting children directly. The adult-child aspects of intergenerational closure are not well understood, but the psychology literature identifies several ways in which non-family adults can benefit children. For example, for youth living in high-risk contexts, supportive relationships with adults outside the family can mitigate the impact of family stress on child development (e.g., Furstenberg 1993; Grossman and Tierney 1998). Indeed, youth who are successful despite high-risk contexts often attribute their success to the influence of important non-parental adults, such as teachers, extended family members, and neighbors (Zimmerman et al. 2002). Children who have relationships with natural mentors exhibit more positive attitudes toward school and are less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors than children without natural mentors (Zimmerman et al.). Families, schools, and communities have changed in ways that reduce their capacity to provide youth with adult support and guidance, and efforts have been undertaken to provide youth living in high-risk contexts with mentors through formal mentoring programs. High-quality mentoring programs and mentor–mentee relationships of sufficient duration were associated with better school attendance, academic performance and employment outcomes, improved family relationships, and decreased problem behaviors and substance use, particularly for low-income, ethnic minority youth (DuBois et al. 2002; Grossman and Tierney 1998).

As informal or formal mentors, affluent neighbors could benefit low-income children by serving as role models, particularly for the benefits of education and employment. The relative affluence or poverty of a neighborhood is likely to shape residents’ decisions to complete high school, marry, have children, or engage in illegal economic activities. Theories of economic choice (Duncan and Hoffman 1991; Haveman and Wolfe 1994) assume that such decisions are made in a rational manner based on their perceived costs and benefits. For example, youth may systematically underestimate returns to education and employment if they live in neighborhoods where the reputational costs of being a good student are high and the returns from education in terms of wealth and income appear to be low (Connell and Halpern-Felsher 1997; Wilson 1987). In poor areas, residents who become wealthy through their participation in the illicit economy are often selected as role models. The presence of affluent educated neighbors may provide evidence for the benefits of education and employment and thus influence youth’s decisions to make early investments in education for later returns.

Affluent neighbors also could provide low-income children with instrumental support around academic goals. Studies reveal that low-income parents often have high educational aspirations for children, but some lack the knowledge and/or skills to help them realize these goals (McKay et al. 2003). For example, low-income parents with limited educational attainment or English language skills may not be well-equipped to provide help with homework, which impacts children’s academic success. In addition, parents may not know how to guide children through the steps necessary to apply for, finance, and obtain higher education. By virtue of higher educational attainment and professional occupations, affluent neighbors likely have extensive knowledge that could benefit low-income children and their parents. For example, in the context of mentorship or academic tutoring programs, affluent neighbors could provide homework support and information about how to negotiate the school system, college admissions and/or employment opportunities. As Anderson (1999) has shown, many long-term residents of low-income communities readily endorse the values of education and employment and therefore the influx of residents with similar values, irrespective of economic differences, could provide a critical mass to influence youth.

Can affluent, professional neighbors serve as effective formal or informal mentors across income and ethnic lines? The presence of affluent, professional neighbors has been linked to improved child outcomes, but these benefits may be limited to situations in which affluent neighbors and youth are ethnically matched (Duncan et al. 1997). The benefits of middle-class neighbors for African American males have been evident only when there are substantial numbers of such neighbors (i.e., a threshold effect >75th percentile) and when these middle-class neighbors were themselves African American. When affluent neighbors and poor residents are not ethnically matched—as is often the case when middle-class, European American residents move into poor, primarily ethnic minority neighborhoods—the potential benefits of affluent neighbors may not be realized.

The mentorship literature has addressed the issue of same- vs. cross-race matching in mentorship relationships. Rhodes et al. (2002) present a rich discussion of arguments for and against ethnic matching in mentorship programs and the complexities inherent in each approach. In addition, some argue that social distance, especially in terms of socio-economic status, may be of greater concern than ethnic matching per se. Others argue that mentors have succeeded in bridging these social distances when skills, knowledge, and networks prove helpful to mentees and when mentors are sensitive to cultural differences (Grossman and Tierney 1998).

A meta-analysis of mentoring program effectiveness concluded that the small, positive effects of mentoring were similar across programs that matched mentors and youth on race and those that did not (DuBois et al. 2002). A study of Big Brothers Big Sisters specifically tested whether minority youth in same- vs. cross-race matches differed in terms of youth outcomes and found that, by and large, racial matching did not differentially affect youth outcomes in a robust or consistent manner (Rhodes et al. 2002). When differences did emerge, some outcomes favored same-race matches and others favored cross-race matches. Unfortunately, these findings are complicated by the fact that families chose to be assigned to same- vs. cross-race matches, and different results may have emerged if families families with a same-race preference had been randomly assigned into a cross-race match.

In that study, approximately two-thirds of minority youth were placed into cross-race matches, suggesting that many families either did not request a same-race mentor or were not willing to endure the long wait list to obtain one. It appears that a significant number of minority families are open to mentorship by a person whose ethnic background is different from their own. Rhodes’ discussion may prove helpful in identifying characteristics of affluent and low-income residents that result in beneficial cross-race matches as well as the potential pitfalls of matching across socio-economic and ethnic lines. Nonetheless, because one-third of youth expressed a strong preference for ethnically-matched mentors and because such mentors may be better able to understand youth’s lives, offer realistic solutions, foster a sense of solidarity, and convey to youth that positive role models exist in their own community (Rhodes et al. 2002), the recruitment of long-time community residents to serve as mentors should not be overlooked.

Child Monitoring and the Regulation of Children’s Peer Groups

Informal social control refers to the expectation that neighbors will intervene on behalf of children and regulate adolescent peer groups (Sampson et al. 1999). Association with deviant peers is a robust risk factor for child internalizing and externalizing problems, school failure, and drug use, and mediates relations between neighborhood characteristics, stressful events, and child outcomes (e.g., Barrera et al. 2002; Cantillon 2006; Roosa et al. 2005). Moreover, Dubow et al. (1997) found that peer support predicted higher levels of antisocial behavior and drug use in a sample of inner-city neighborhoods in a small metropolitan area and strengthened (rather than attenuated) the link between neighborhood disadvantage and negative child outcome. Within disadvantaged neighborhoods, a strong peer support system is detrimental to some children and potential benefits from peer support can be greatly diminished or eliminated (e.g., Gonzales et al. 1996).

The capacity of the community to regulate the group dynamics of youth is a key mechanism linking neighborhood characteristics with child outcomes (Sampson 1997; Sampson and Groves 1989). In disadvantaged neighborhoods without strong informal social control of youth, child monitoring falls more squarely on the shoulders of individual parents (Beyers et al. 2003), and even strong parental monitoring may not completely offset neighborhood risk (Gorman-Smith et al. 2000). Indeed, unsupervised time while out in the community or unsupervised time with peers—rather than a general lack of parental supervision—is associated with problem behavior (Beyers et al. 2003; Pettit et al. 1999). Examples of neighborhood informal social control include supervising leisure-time youth activities, intervening in street-corner congregation, and challenging adolescents “who seem to be up to no good” (Sampson). These strategies are linked to decreased association with deviant peers (Brody et al. 2001), increased association with conventional friends (Elliott et al. 1996), and lower rates of delinquency and crime in the neighborhood (Cantillon 2006; Sampson). Negative peer effects are strongest in neighborhoods with low social organization (Brody et al. 2001).

When intergenerational closure is high (i.e., when parents know each other and know their children’s friends and when children know their friends’ parents), children have more safe places to congregate (e.g., in each other’s homes) and child monitoring is enhanced. Indeed, intergenerational closure has been linked to improved academic outcomes, self-esteem, and social competence and to lower levels of externalizing behavior for European American youth (Fletcher et al. 2001). The benefits of intergenerational closure were present, but less consistent, for African American youth, and despite its protective role for many outcomes (e.g., academic competence, internalizing behavior), intergenerational closure seemed to increase risk for externalizing behavior for African American youth.

How might affluent neighbors become involved in the social control of low-income neighborhood youth? On the one hand, because they tend to be homeowners and have financial incentives to protect their investments, higher-income residents are more likely to organize neighborhood improvement and safety efforts (e.g., neighborhood watch groups; Rohe and Stewart 1996). In gentrifying neighborhoods, new residents often form homeowner’s associations to share information about the neighborhood and to lobby for policy changes that could improve property values and the quality of life in the neighborhood. Drawing on their financial and political capital, affluent residents may be better able to secure police involvement, and these “formal” social control strategies may ultimately make the neighborhood safer for all residents, including low-income youth.

In gentrifying areas, neighbors are less likely to know each other and class and cultural differences can complicate such interactions. New residents may feel uncomfortable intervening with neighborhood youth if they feel a sense of social distance based on age, social class, or ethnicity. Just as suburban residents are more likely than urban residents to report less serious crimes, affluent neighbors may be more likely to rely on outside intervention (e.g., police) than on internal sanctioning (Mitchell 2003). Gentrification also could have a negative impact on youth if affluent residents are overly condemning of normative youth behaviors they do not understand (e.g., misinterpreting youth congregation as gang activity). For example, affluent residents in a mixed-income community were more supportive of rules and enforcement mechanisms that promoted social control than their lower-income neighbors (Rosenbaum et al. 1998). These factors could explain why intergenerational closure is less consistently beneficial and at times detrimental for African American youth (e.g., Fletcher et al. 2001).

Implications for Public Policy and Intervention Research

Income mixing opens the door for affluent neighbors to engage in collective socialization, but these processes would likely need to be facilitated. In many areas, income mixing is a “block-by-block” phenomenon, and studies of mixed-income developments have found social interactions between groups (renters vs. owners, middle- vs. lower-income) to be cordial but infrequent (Joseph 2008). Therefore, creating and supporting settings for interaction among neighbors seems critical to building the neighbor-to-neighbor relationships that can foster collective socialization. Schools, day care centers, parks, and recreation centers can serve as such settings, but opportunities for interactions among neighbors will likely need to be coordinated via events organized around specific goals.

The literature on sense of community speaks to these critical issues. McMillan and Chavis (1986) posit four elements to a sense of community: (a) membership, or a feeling that community members have of belonging; (b) influence, or the sense that people matter to one another and to the group and can influence its goals and accomplishments; (c) fulfillment of needs, or the sense that one’s needs will be met by the resources of the group and their contribution to it; and (d) shared emotional connection, or the sense that individuals in the group have shared and will share history, common places, time together, and similar experiences. In the case of gentrification, where long-time and incoming residents do not share a common history or emotional connection and are unlikely to influence each other or see themselves as part of a cohesive community, it seems prudent to begin by building a sense of fulfillment of needs. McMillan and Chavis posit that individuals are attracted to others who share their values and can help them achieve shared goals. Groups with a strong sense of community connect people in ways that help them meet their own needs while supporting those of others. In the case of gentrification, affluent neighbors have the political clout to demand improved institutional resources, the financial resources to fund such neighborhood improvements (for example, through their contributions to the tax base), and information about accessing educational and occupational opportunities for children. Low-income residents know the history of the neighborhood and resources in need of improvement and can offer the rich cultural heritage and/or locally owned businesses that lend character to the neighborhood and attract some residents to gentrifying areas. The neighborhood-level mediators presented in this paper present some options for shaping neighborhood goals, or there may be more pressing local needs. Educational aspirations and neighborhood school improvement may well be the most important thread that unites the goals of affluent and low-income residents who have children.

According to McMillan and Chavis, if group members can build a shared emotional connection through their shared goals (for example, by increasing the quantity and quality of their contact, equitably investing time and energy toward meeting goals, and experience successful closure to goals set forth by the group) and if they can share influence in the process, then a sense of community can emerge and important neighborhood goals can be met. Research is needed to identify ways to engage residents from diverse income and ethnic backgrounds and factors that predict who becomes involved. The available research suggests that sense of community can be measured reliably at the neighborhood level (Kingston et al. 1999) and identifies individual- and neighborhood-level factors that predict a sense of community among neighbors (see, for example, Brodsky et al. 1999;Chavis and Wandersman 1990; Farrell et al. 2004). If such neighbor-to-neighbor interaction occurs in gentrifying neighborhoods and can be targeted toward community improvement (naturally or via community organization efforts), does it make a difference in child outcomes?

The issue of whether collective socialization or a sense of community can be developed in socio-economically and ethnically diverse neighborhoods is a complicated one. In considering possible relationships (or lack thereof) between middle-income, European American and low-income, ethnic minority residents, several assumptions often come into play. First, it is assumed that middle-income, European American gentrifiers “tolerate” low-income neighbors of color in exchange for living in a more affordable, exciting environment. It also is assumed that residents of color are resistant to an influx of affluent neighbors, and meaningful social relationships cannot and will not emerge. While these assumptions can accurately reflect some residents’ attitudes, they also potentially underestimate the diversity of reactions of both European American and ethnic minority residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Research regarding how African Americans and European Americans feel about living in neighborhoods with varying levels of ethnic integration paints a complex picture (see Sullivan 2006, for a review). Research on residential preferences (Krysan and Farley 2002) revealed that approximately 75% of African Americans preferred to live in integrated neighborhoods, and the vast majority noted valuing ethnic diversity and the positive effects of integration (e.g., improved race relations) as the top two reasons for this preference; improved neighborhood resources was also noted as an advantage. Among European Americans, some associated African American residents with crime and declining property values and evaluated neighborhoods less favorably as the percentage of minority residents increased (Farley et al. 1994; Krysan and Farley 2002). However, European Americans who choose to move into gentrifying neighborhoods likely do not hold strong, negative attitudes toward ethnic integration. Indeed, some European Americans moving into gentrifying neighborhoods expressly desired ethnic diversity (Zukin 1995; Freeman 2006; Joseph 2008), and some first-wave gentrifiers expressed regret over declining ethnic diversity in subsequent waves of gentrification (Anderson 1990).

Media portrayals and prior ethnographic research has focused mainly on the most outspoken advocates and critics of gentrification, but less is known about the views of local residents who do not publicly advocate for or protest against neighborhood changes (Sullivan 2006). African Americans in gentrifying neighborhoods held diverse views. Some African Americans were wary of incoming European American gentrifiers and raised concerns that their new neighbors would not trust them, would discriminate against them, or would bring with them increased police presence that could unfairly target them (Patillo 2003; Freeman 2006). Others welcomed ethnic integration because they believed it could lead to improvements in neighborhood safety, retail offerings, municipal services, job opportunities, and neighborhood schools (Freeman 2006; Joseph 2008). Survey research in two gentrifying neighborhoods (Sullivan 2007) revealed that the majority of residents felt their neighborhood had improved in the last 5 years (62%) and would continue to improve over the next 5 years (77%). This was true for owners and renters, European American and ethnic minority residents, newcomers and long-time residents, and residents who were college educated and those who were not. Despite these largely positive views, two groups were less likely to approve of neighborhood changes: renters and long-time African American residents. Trust among neighbors, which differed for African American and European American residents (32% vs. 65%, respectively), emerged as an important predictor of approval of past and future neighborhood changes (Sullivan 2006). Unfortunately, former residents were not interviewed, some of whom may have been forced out of the neighborhood and likely had more negative views of neighborhood changes.

The question that looms large in this area is whether or not middle-class, European American gentrifiers will advocate for neighborhood improvements that ultimately will benefit their low-income neighbors. The gentrification literature highlights some examples of such advocacy. In some gentrifying neighborhoods, European American residents made special efforts to promote ethnic integration, patronize local businesses, advocate for more affordable housing, and support community organizations that helped bring the community together (see Sullivan 2006, for a review). For example, gentrifiers in “Eastern City” (Anderson 1990) bought and renovated housing units, which they sold or rented to African American residents, and organized social events to promote community integration and celebrate ethnic diversity. European American “social preservationists” in Chicago (Brown-Saracino 2004) sought out social ties with ethnic minority and low-income residents, supported local businesses, organized and attended events that celebrated minority cultures, advocated for more affordable housing and rallied against luxury condominiums that would lead to displacement of long-time residents. They worked to create familiarity or friendship between neighbors, preserve the presence of children and families, and demand low-income housing to minimize displacement of residents. Recent studies of mixed-income housing developments have found some evidence of “neighboring relationships” across income levels (Kleit 2005).

These studies provide preliminary evidence that European American gentrifiers can and do rally in support of their new neighborhoods and neighbors. Nonetheless, they were not without problems in some neighborhoods (see Brown-Saracino 2004). Some long-time residents were not particularly welcoming of newcomers and were not willing to collaborate on neighborhood projects. There were cases of mismatched goals between newcomers and long-time residents, and in some cases, newcomers seemed to define who and what was “authentic” and worthy of preservation. In other cases, newcomers were attracted to the “urban grit” of the neighborhood and seemed to want to preserve the “visible poverty.”

In some cases, attempts to create mixed-income neighborhoods were managed in ways that one could reasonably expect would produce resentment and strained ethnic relations, including (a) inequitable housing policies requiring low-income residents, but no one else, to submit to criminal background checks or housekeeping classes to move into mixed-income developments (e.g., Fauth et al. 2007); (b) inequitable distribution of the benefits of development, for example, when magnet school slots are reserved for middle-class gentrifiers (Smith and Stovall 2007) or when retail shops cater to the preferences and budgets of wealthier residents (Bostic and Martin 2003); and (c) demolition of low-income housing to pave the way for upper-income residents (Boyd 2000). The key here is that neither collaboration nor antagonism is a foregone conclusion, but instead there are conditions under which we might expect to see either unfold. If so, then it may be possible to implement policies that steer this complex process in ways that foster collaboration and a sense of community among neighbors across class and ethnic lines: development without displacement, equitable public investment in high-quality resources that can be accessed by all, subsidized loan funds to assist long-time homeowners and upgrade local businesses, and careful training and monitoring of police presence.

Here, too, there are many unanswered questions: What factors facilitate or hinder collective socialization and a sense of community across socio-economic and ethnic lines? Residential mobility, which presumably would be high in gentrifying neighborhoods, undermines neighborhood sense of community, but neighboring behaviors (such as the exchange of emotional, instrumental, or informational support) increases it (Chavis and Wandersman 1990; Farrell et al. 2004). Do affluent and low-income neighbors share enough in common that they can create a “neighborhood context for childrearing”, or are their goals and approaches so different as to prevent cooperative efforts? How do these processes differ when the affluent in-movers are the same race or ethnicity as the existing residents? Examining the individual- and neighborhood-level predictors of sense of community in gentrifying neighborhood would identify potential points of intervention; institutional-level predictors, such as gentrification-related policies that could reasonably be expected to foster antagonism among neighbors, should not be overlooked. Clearly, neighborhoods where relations between long-time and incoming residents are open and flexible vs. tense or strained will require different interventions. At this time, collective socialization and sense of community in gentrifying neighborhoods are not well understood. These issues are complicated and potentially problematic, but we feel it is important not to operate on the untested assumption that neighbors are too divided across class and ethnic lines to collectively rally for their neighborhoods and children. Indeed, there is some hope to be gleaned from a pattern of results that suggests that at least some subset of both African American and European American residents prefer ethnically-integrated neighborhoods, value ethnic diversity, and view residential integration as an opportunity to improve race relations and preserve ethnic minority heritage and neighborhood history.

The literatures on community building (McNeely 1999; see also Kingsley et al. 1997), psychological sense of community (McMillan and Chavis 1986), and community-based participatory research in neighborhoods (Chaskin et al. 2006; Chavis et al. 1983) could offer some guidance on developing neighborhood interventions. It has been argued that such interventions should adopt “best practices” as well as “best processes,” or strategies aimed at planning and implementing comprehensive interventions in and with communities (e.g., strategic planning; Wandersman 2003; Watson-Thompson et al. 2008). Community building efforts should include both incoming and long-time neighborhood residents as potential community advocates and sources of neighborly support. The high school and college aged children of both incoming and long-time residents should not be overlooked as potential sources of support to younger children in the neighborhood. The historical consequences of gentrification suggest that neighborhood improvement efforts should be asset-based and ensure that both affluent and low-income neighbors share a voice in shaping neighborhood goals.

Displacement

Gentrification would not be a major public policy concern were it not for its association with involuntary displacement. Indeed, the benefits of new affluent neighbors might well outweigh any negative impacts if gentrification did not result in relocation pressure on those existing residents who would prefer to stay in their homes and neighborhoods. In response to resident protests to gentrification efforts, some might wonder why community residents would wish to stay in their neighborhood, particularly if it is characterized by high crime rates and safety concerns. Neighborhoods, even high-risk neighborhoods, provide residents with a sense of place and, for many, neighborhoods organize their family and community lives through schools, businesses, and places of worship. They can offer residents a sense of belonging, support, and involvement (Brodsky et al. 1999; Chavis and Wandersman 1990; Gorman-Smith et al. 2000), which, in turn, support child development, even in disadvantaged areas (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997). When low-income residents are displaced by gentrification, these protective processes are disrupted. Even in neighborhoods where residents perceive few redeeming qualities, they are likely to be resentful of being forced to move by factors outside their control, especially when faced with few high-quality options for new housing.

Gentrification triggers property value appreciation when there is an increase in demand for housing by wealthier households who are able to pay more than existing residents for real estate in the neighborhood. This appreciation affects owners and renters (and their children) differently. For owners (even low-income homeowners), gentrification increases the equity in their homes, providing them with more wealth, more access to credit, and a foundation for future investments (Quercia et al. 2000; Page-Adams and Sherraden 1996). Parental wealth, of which homeownership is a significant component, impacts a wide range of child outcomes, including internalizing and externalizing behaviors, with the largest effects noted for cognitive and academic outcomes (Conley 1999; for a review, see Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997). Indeed, the social benefits of homeownership are greater for lower-income households than for wealthier households (Harkness and Newman 2003). In these ways, property appreciation can be beneficial to low-income homeowners who are able to remain in their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, however, low-income homeowners can experience financial strain as their mortgage payments or property taxes increase, particularly if their wealth is tied up in their home or if their incomes decline. Some may be involuntarily “priced out” of their neighborhoods.

If renters pay a higher share of their monthly income on increased rents without a corresponding improvement in housing quality, they are made worse-off by gentrification. An unexpected increase in housing costs can exacerbate economic hardship, which in turn impacts parental well-being, family relationships, and child outcomes (Barrera et al. 2002; McLoyd 1990). Increased housing costs consume resources that otherwise could be spent on developmental resources for children, such as high-quality day care and educational books, toys, and activities (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997). In addition, parents may need to work longer hours to pay for increased housing costs, rendering it more difficult to be emotionally available to children, monitor them, and become involved in their schooling (e.g., Gutman and Eccles 1999). In many cases, economic hardship may necessitate relocation out of the neighborhood.

Low-income residents do what they can to cope with rising housing costs so they may remain in their neighborhoods, especially if they feel a social and psychological bond to the area or if their children are enrolled in school there. In some gentrifying areas, families have reduced the consumption of other goods and services (Catalyst 2003; Covington and Taylor 1989; DeGiovanni and Paulson 1984), moved to poorer housing in the same neighborhood, doubled and tripled up in a single housing unit, or traded “in kind services”, such as maintenance work, for stabilized rents (Newman and Wyly 2004). In these cases, residents experience economic hardship, but may be willing to pay more for housing if they are compensated with better quality public services, jobs, or neighborhood amenities due to the in-migration of wealthier residents and businesses (Vigdor 2002; Freeman and Braconi 2004). These reasons might explain why, even after a wave of gentrification, some neighborhoods maintain an extensive renter and low-income population (Maly 2005).

Although not all gentrifying neighborhoods will experience the widespread displacement of low-income residents, many do. Attempts to measure gentrification-induced displacement have been inconclusive, ranging from one to five percent of households in national studies (Newman and Owen 1982; Gale 1980) and from 10 percent (DeGiovanni 1983; Newman and Wyly 2004) to 23 percent (Shill and Nathan 1983) in neighborhood case studies. These estimates are complicated by measurement issues (Newman and Wyly), whether the housing market studied is soft or tight (Freeman and Braconi 2004; Kennedy and Leonard 2001), and the differential impact of gentrification on the displacement of homeowners versus renters (Newman and Wyly). The involuntary relocation of families can have serious implications for children.

Disruption of Social Networks and Collective Socialization

It is important to consider the potential impact of an influx of affluent residents as much for the processes it initiates as for those it may disrupt. For example, high-quality role models exist in both affluent and poor neighborhoods. With fewer indigenous neighborhood residents available to supervise neighborhood youth, children in gentrifying neighborhoods may be more at risk of involvement with deviant peer groups. Affluent neighbors, who are often culturally and economically distinct from residents in the neighborhoods they enter and who may cause resentment due to the displacement of poor residents, may be unlikely candidates to provide the role modeling and social control strategies that well-respected, highly-integrated, ethnic minority community members may have provided in the past. When gentrification disrupts these protective community processes, low-income youth may end up worse off.

Family and School Transitions

A high rate of family-level residential mobility has been linked to internalizing and externalizing problems, poorer grades, and early sexual activity (e.g., Adam and Chase-Lansdale 2002; Simmons et al. 1987). Family relocation sets into motion multiple transitions that can be stressful for families, including the loss of familiar physical environments and routines, changes in parents’ and children’s social networks, and decreases in parent well-being and parent–child relationship quality (e.g., Adam and Chase-Lansdale). If families are relocated to distant neighborhoods, children might also experience school transitions, which are themselves associated with outcomes (Seidman et al. 1994) and parents may need to find new jobs or commute longer distances. As families negotiate multiple transitions at once, child functioning is impacted in ways that exceed the effects of encountering multiple transitions sequentially (Simmons et al.).

Quality of the Receiving Neighborhood

Residential mobility is not unequivocally associated with poorer outcomes (Shumaker and Stokols 1982), and its effects depend largely on the quality of the receiving neighborhood. Children relocating to places with more institutional resources might benefit from relocation or at least be buffered from some of the risks of moving. The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) studies provide some evidence of the beneficial effects, particularly for girls, of low-income families moving to safe areas with high-quality educational and recreational resources for children (e.g., Rosenbaum and Harris 2001; Orr et al. 2003). Unfortunately, however, families who cannot afford to remain in gentrifying neighborhoods will also be priced out of higher quality neighborhoods. Displaced public housing residents tend to cluster in segregated neighborhoods that are similar or worse to the pre-developed state of those they left, which has the effect of reconcentrating poverty in a new locale (Turner et al. 1999). Jacob (2004) found that children in households displaced by the demolition of public housing moved into low-quality receiving neighborhoods and did no better on a variety of academic achievement measures than their peers. Even MTO households often selected communities whose schools were not significantly higher-performing than those of the neighborhoods left behind (Orr et al. 2003; Briggs et al. 2008). Although residential displacement is not always related to a decrease in the living conditions of the poor (Vigdor 2002), many families will relocate to other low-income, similarly disadvantaged neighborhoods that bring with them the same constellation of risk factors present in their former neighborhood. These families must now contend with neighborhood disadvantage and the multiple transitions and disruptions in social networks caused by the move itself.

Implications for Public Policy and Intervention Research

Many interventions have been proposed to retain low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods. Most of these are “place-based” (as opposed to people-based) programs that are aimed at improving the places where low-income households live while relieving the increased burden of housing costs. For example, rent control suppresses housing expenses for long-time tenants in qualifying units relative to the rents of neighboring properties occupied by new tenants (Gyourko and Linneman 1989). Legal counsel and regulatory reforms can be provided to strengthen tenants’ rights and fight illegal evictions, and local regulatory reforms, such as inclusionary zoning or developer set-asides, can require that developers of new, market-rate housing provide a set percentage of units that would be rented at affordable rates for low-income households (Kennedy and Leonard 2001). Such policies have been implemented in New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco, and Boston, with some evidence of success in retaining low-income households (Newman and Wyly 2004; Schwartz 1999). Home ownership assistance programs can help low-income residents purchase a home, and “circuit breakers” can be used to provide a tax refund or credit when taxes exceed a percentage of the homeowner’s income. Other policies are less tied to specific places, instead targeting individual households with relocation assistance such as the Housing Choice Vouchers and Moving to Opportunity program.

Conclusion

The possibility of gentrification-induced displacement, economic hardship, social isolation, and resource deprivation pose serious threats to the emotional and academic welfare of children. Nonetheless, gentrification is a widespread phenomenon in many U.S. cities with sweeping consequences for low-income families. From our perspective, a potentially fruitful strategy is to identify the potential benefits of gentrification and better understand the conditions under which they might materialize. How can policy and mental health interventions steer this complex process to maximize its potential benefits to both affluent and low-income families? The literature reviewed thus far points to interventions that will require sufficient numbers of both affluent and low-income neighbors to co-exist in a gentrifying area before any potential benefits can be achieved. How many affluent households need be present in a community before we can expect to see improvements in institutional resources and sources of support for low-income families? How many low-income residents need remain in gentrifying neighborhoods to ensure that a substantial number of families can benefit from improved institutional resources and collective socialization across socio-economic lines? Can mixed-income neighborhoods, once achieved, be subsequently sustained over long enough duration to improve child outcomes?

The public sector must recognize that gentrification likely impacts poor children through two important channels: institutional resources and collective socialization. Policy makers may want to consider a two-pronged policy approach that aims to retain low-income families in gentrifying neighborhoods and channels a portion of new revenues (e.g., property taxes) created by gentrification back into the neighborhood. If institutional resources remain in a state of decline and the social fabric of the neighborhood is torn and cannot be repaired, then affluent neighbors will benefit from gentrification while low-income neighbors continue to bear its risks. If an acceptable balancing point can be achieved and sustained, how can affluent and low-income neighbors share in the benefits that may accrue?

The allocation of benefits depends on several different factors. Key among them are whether affluent neighbors will commit their financial assets or political clout to creating or improving neighborhood resources; whether affluent residents will make themselves available to their low-income neighbors to provide parent-to-parent and adult-child links; and whether low-income residents will want to avail themselves of such resources, particularly across socio-economic and ethnic lines and in a context that often produces resentment. These uncertainties highlight the transactional nature of neighborhood influences (Roosa et al. 2003), whereby residents create and sustain many aspects of neighborhood quality (at least in part) as well as benefit from or endure them.

Up to this point, we have assumed that the positive relations between affluent neighbors and child outcomes are explained by both access to higher-quality institutional resources and affluent neighbors’ contribution to the collective efficacy of residents. However, if it were the case that prior positive findings were due more to resources than social relations, then perhaps—contrary to the conventional wisdom—gentrification is not necessary to deconcentrate poverty and improve children’s well-being. If affluent neighbors do not offer or are not willing to offer other types of benefits to low-income youth and families, policy interventions need not follow the private market: low-income residents should “simply” be given equal access to the higher-quality institutional resources used to recruit and retain higher income families in gentrifying neighborhoods. This can be achieved through additional government investment in public goods such as schools and infrastructure, or an improvement in the economic positions of existing residents (i.e., “incumbent upgrading”) catalyzed by either government (e.g., job training programs) or market forces. Higher-quality institutional resources could retain those existing, ethnically-matched residents who might have more influence on youth and would stay in the neighborhood despite their financial means to leave. Finally, although our focus here has been on gentrifying neighborhoods, we do not wish to understate the importance of strengthening institutional resources and engaging in community building efforts in disadvantaged neighborhoods that are not experiencing gentrification.

The risks of concentrated poverty for low-income children and families are well-documented and sobering, but the question of who should be responsible for neighborhood investments remains unresolved. The public investment model has lost political currency in the last several decades, whereas the private investment model (i.e., gentrification) has been the de facto “strategy” of choice. Unfortunately, without interventions to support neighborhood institutional resources, facilitate social interactions between existing residents and in-movers, and protect poor residents from displacement, the benefits may be restricted to the children of affluent households. Local governments and community-based organizations would do well to capitalize on the momentum created by gentrification and craft interventions to channel some of its benefits to low-income youth. To guide these efforts, research is sorely needed to explore how to activate community resources that can help tip the scales from problems to promise for low-income families in gentrifying neighborhoods. These efforts will be complicated, but worth undertaking if the alternatives are to allow concentrated poverty to flourish or permit gentrification to unfold in ways that only worsen the plight of the poor.