Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data

40 Pages Posted: 7 May 2019 Last revised: 8 Jan 2023

See all articles by Kacie Dragan

Kacie Dragan

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

Ingrid Gould Ellen

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

Sherry Glied

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: May 2019

Abstract

The pace of gentrification has accelerated in cities across the country since 2000, and many observers fear it is displacing low-income populations from their homes and communities. We offer new evidence about the consequences of gentrification on mobility, building and neighborhood conditions, using longitudinal New York City Medicaid records from January 2009 to December 2015 to track the movement of a cohort of low-income children over seven years, during a period of rapid gentrification in the city. We leverage building-level data to examine children in market rate housing separately from those in subsidized housing. We find no evidence that gentrification is associated with meaningful changes in mobility rates over the seven-year period. It is associated with slightly longer distance moves. As for changes in neighborhood conditions, we find that children who start out in a gentrifying area experience larger improvements in some aspects of their residential environment than their counterparts who start out in persistently low-socioeconomic status areas. This effect is driven by families who stay in neighborhoods as they gentrify; we observe few differences in the characteristics of destination neighborhoods among families who move, though we find modest evidence that children moving from gentrifying areas move to lower-quality buildings.

Suggested Citation

Dragan, Kacie and Ellen, Ingrid Gould and Glied, Sherry A., Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data (May 2019). NBER Working Paper No. w25809, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3383308

Kacie Dragan (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service ( email )

The Puck Building
295 Lafayette Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10012
United States

Ingrid Gould Ellen

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service ( email )

The Puck Building
295 Lafayette Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10012
United States

Sherry A. Glied

New York University (NYU) - Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service ( email )

The Puck Building
295 Lafayette Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10012
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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