Fed: Slower growth, less optimism in some regions   Wednesday, 31 May 2017 | 2:00 PM ET | 01:14 The U.S. economy continued to grow at a steady, if sluggish, pace from early April through late May, according to the Federal Reserve‘s latest survey of regional economic conditions. That slow pace also helped keep inflation in check, according to comments from the businesses polled by the central bank’s 12 regional districts. “On balance, pricing pressures were little changed from the prior report,” the central bank said in its Beige Book report on the economy.  

In order to fully grasp the history of urban community development and its implications for urban planning and policy, it is important to first understand the dynamics of neighborhood change. Why do neighborhoods decline, improve, or remain stable over time? Following the taxonomy of Temkin and Rohe (1996), this paper surveys three major schools of thought with regard to theoretical understanding of how and why neighborhoods change – ecological, subcultural, and political economy – reflecting on their implications for neighborhood development policy. Read Full Research Paper (PDF)

U.S. National Housing Institute, 2008.  This publication offers CDCs, local officials, and other stakeholders, including local institutional, business, and community leaders, a new way to look at how they can manage neighborhood change in order to bring about sustainable and equitable revitalization. It is based on a simple idea: The most powerful lever for neighborhood change is change in the demand for housing in the neighborhood. Change in the residential real estate market can lead to a stronger, healthier neighborhood. At the same time, market change can take problematic forms, leading to undesirable outcomes. It can be driven by speculation, triggering little or no improvement in the community’s quality of life, or it can disrupt established communities, displacing long-time low- and moderate-income residents. Higher house prices without improvement to neighborhood vitality and quality of life is neither positive nor sustainable, while change that leads to displacement of an area’s lower-income residents is not equitable. This proposition defines the central question for all those struggling with the task of revitalizing urban neighborhoods: how to build both a stronger housing market and a healthier neighborhood while ensuring that the community’s lower-income residents benefit from the neighborhood’s revitalization? Read Full Research Paper (PDF)

Urban Studies 46(10) 2103–2122, September 2009. Little attention has been paid to date to the role of a changing neighbourhood as a factor influencing the residential choice process. Processes of neighbourhood change are often beyond residents’ sphere of influence and if a changing neighbourhood causes residential stress, the only way to improve one’s neighbourhood is to move to a better one. This study aims to get more insight into the effect of neighbourhood change on residential stress by studying residents’ wish to leave their neighbourhood. Using data from The Netherlands, we show that there is no effect of a change in the socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood on moving wishes. A high level of population turnover and an increase in the proportion of non-Western ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood increase the probability that residents want to leave their neighbourhood. The latter effect disappears when controlled for residents’ subjective opinion about neighbourhood change. Read Full Research Paper (PDF)

As part of a research project on neighbourhood change in cities across Canada we have developed a typology of neighbourhoods for eight Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs): Calgary, Halifax, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. We created this typology using 2006 census data for 3,139 census tracts in the eight CMAs. We focused on 30 variables related to economic status, age, family, and household status, immigrant and ethnic status, migrant status, and housing status. By analysing the relationships among these variables using component analysis and undertaking a cluster analysis of the component scores we were able to identify 15 clusters of  census tracts that  characterize distinct urban neighbourhoods. We have organized these 15 clusters into six larger groups: Older Working Class, Urban/Suburban Homeowner, Old City Establishment, Disadvantaged Groups, and Family Ethnoburbs. Not all clusters appear in all CMAs. Toronto includes all 15 clusters, while Halifax (the smallest city in the study) has only nine. Larger and more socially complex CMAs exhibit the largest number of clusters. Read Full Research Paper (PDF)