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American Economic Review Vol. 102 No. 3 2012

Within-City Variation in Urban Decline: The Case of Detroit

Veronica Guerrieri1; Daniel Hartley2; Erik Hurst1

1 University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. · 2 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, PO Box 6387, Cleveland, OH 44101.

Abstract

When a city experiences a decline in income or population, do all neighborhoods within the city decline equally? Or, do some neighborhoods decline more than others? What are the characteristics of the neighborhoods that decline the most? We answer these questions by looking at what happened to neighborhoods within Detroit as Detroit experienced a sharp decline in income and population from the 1980s to the late 2000s. We find patterns of changes in income and population that are consistent with the model and empirical patterns of gentrification presented in Guerrieri, Hartley, and Hurst (2011), only playing out in reverse.

DOI
10.1257/aer.102.3.120
Volume
102
Issue
3
Pages
120-126
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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