Turning the Corner Literature Catalog

As part of the Turning the Corner project, the Urban Institute reviewed recent literature and projects on neighborhood change and displacement in the summer and fall of 2016. The team also collected examples through Spring 2019 of analysis with methods, framing, or policies helpful as illustrations for other communities.

Academic researchers and practitioners alike have worked on issues surrounding neighborhood change for decades. For the purpose of this project, this catalog of literature, methods, and practice focused primarily on the underdeveloped areas of thought, including innovative data and methods and original framing and themes. This catalog is intended largely to inform local work, and therefore is restricted to activities and literature generally from generally published between 2010 and 2018, with a few notable exceptions when topically relevant. The catalog contains the following worksheets:

• Literature worksheet: A listing of the academic literature exploring neighborhood change, particularly post-recession and in recovering American cities.
• Methods worksheet: A document that highlights notable papers and projects with useful methodologies for measuring neighborhood change, gentrification, or displacement.
• Practice worksheet: A document that highlights notable projects addressing aspects of neighborhood change in cities around the country.

We sought insights on:

• Characteristics of neighborhood change and outcomes (neighborhood transition, decline, and revitalization)
• Characteristics of neighborhood change and potential displacement (socio-polical, household-level, community-level, and institutional)
• Drivers of neighborhood change, including but not limited to business owners, changes in the housing market, and public investment

Background

Turning the Corner: Monitoring Neighborhood Change to Prevent Displacement piloted a research model in five cities to monitor neighborhood change, drive informed government action, and support displacement prevention and inclusive revitalization. The project was guided by the Urban Institute’s National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Federal Reserve-Philanthropy Initiative, a collaboration between the Restoring Prosperity in Older Industrial Cities Working Group of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities and several Federal Reserve district banks.