Gentrification and Racial Residential Segregation in Washington, D.C.: Examining the Interrelation of Changes in Racial and Class Transformation from 1990 to 2009

Jonathan Jackson, University of Maryland

I examine whether gentrification represents a new form of inequality, thereby intensifying racial and class disparities, or brings greater racial residential integration and brighter economic prospects for the vast majority of residents. I focus on Washington, D.C., a city which has undergone significant racial and class transformation in the past few decades and where city politics has hotly debated gentrification. By creating a quantitative measure of gentrification, a phenomenon rarely operationalized, I can analyze how it interacts with measures of racial evenness and displacement. I compare changes in these measures by the tract-level between 1990 and 2009 using the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five year summary file and Census 1990 and 2000 long form data, thereby providing a timely update to changes in the city’s racial and class composition.