Research Question: Does the progression of gentrification in a neighbourhood correlate with the crime rate of the area?
The Lower East Side, particularly the East Village, provides a valuable case study for this question as a prime example of a neighbourhood with historically high crime rates during the 1980s. However, the onset of gentrification seemed to accompany an overall pacification of the area along with declining crime rates. Whether this drop in crime is attributable to gentrification cannot be immediately determined, but the Lower East Side could be helpful in finding this correlation.
Bushwick, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, will provide a relevant comparison neighbourhood in this study. Bushwick is an area with relatively high crime rates that still seem to persist today. However, the neighbourhood appears to be witnessing the very beginning of gentrification in certain locations. Thus, examining the trend of Bushwick’s crime rate may be able to strengthen an assertion of a correlation between gentrification and crime rate.
We are also considering using Williamsburg and/or Park Slope in this study because they are gentrification hot spots. The addition of supplementary neighbourhoods into the study could provide more data to bolster the authority of the study.
Among the millions of sources that will be analyzed for this study are newspaper articles, both recent and historical. Looking in archives of newspaper articles will be able to display the high crime rate of the Lower East Side’s past. More recent articles should be able to document the initial wave of gentrification that has come to Bushwick. Furthermore, this study will incorporate hard statistics, reported by the NYPD and other sources, measuring historical and present-day crime rates in the two areas.
In order to conduct this study, the research group estimates that a budget of between $500,000 to $750,000 will be necessary.
– Kristy Timms, Roseann Weick, and Chris Arroyo
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