Google street view shows that gentrification in Chicago has largely bypassed poor minority neighborhoods, reinforcing urban inequality

Gentrification has become a catchphrase in recent decades, signaling a reversal of fortunes for declining neighborhoods and cities. Yet Jackelyn Hwang and Robert Sampson show that race plays a significant role in the degree to which neighborhoods undergo renewal in Chicago, reinforcing durable patterns of urban inequality and revealing the limits of stated preferences for racial diversity. Using Google Street View to collect data on visible indicators of gentrification, they find that neighborhoods suffering from a lack of investment with high concentrations of blacks and Latinos in the mid-1990s had lower levels of reinvestment over the next 14 years. While gentrification does favor a degree of racial diversity, most poor minority neighborhoods have not witnessed widespread reinvestment.