2023/01/22 by Lyndsay N. Boggess, Lexi Gill, Nick Branic
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Homelessness and Social Issues #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
paper · doi:10.1177/00111287221150190
openalex publication_date 2023/01/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
One unexamined aspect in gentrification and crime research is whether perceived crime declines in gentrifying neighborhoods are due to the displacement of crime into nearby areas. Using an innovative measure of gentrification, we examine whether Los Angeles neighborhoods identified as having gentrified between 2000 and 2018 experienced differential change in crime relative to neighborhoods that did not gentrify; and whether gentrification in spatially proximate neighborhoods influenced crime in the focal neighborhood, a sign of displacement. We found neighborhoods surrounded by gentrified neighborhoods saw an increase in property, but not violent, crime. The impact of spatial gentrification was not contingent on change in crime in the focal, suggesting the impacts of gentrification are spatially diffuse, but do not necessarily displace crime.