Attitudes Towards Racial Outgroups During Gentrification - Urban Affairs Review, 2026

Abstract

Gentrification is a pressing concern for many lower income neighborhoods around the country. However, despite voluminous evidence of the economic and health impacts of gentrification, we know surprisingly little about how gentrification impacts attitudes. I investigate whether gentrification of Black neighborhoods leads Blacks to develop more negative evaluations of the racial group of their gentrifiers, and whether these attitudes are the same for gentrifiers of different racial groups. I construct a merged dataset combining individual responses from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Survey,  ZIP code level contextual data from the American Community Survey, and an original dataset of restaurant prices and reviews. In general, in-migration of non-Black newcomers does not lead to more negative attitudes towards these newcomers’ racial group. White-led gentrification of Black neighborhoods may lead to more negative views towards Whites, but only when accompanied by rent increases. Latino-led and Asian-led gentrification do not produce similar effects.