Althoff, Keri N., et al. “Secular Changes in Mortality Disparities in New York City: A Reexamination.” Journal of Urban Health, vol. 86, no. 5, Sept. 2009, pp. 729-744. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11524-009-9350-y.

Previously published analyses showed that inequalities in mortality rates between residents of poor and wealthy neighborhoods in New York City (NYC) narrowed between 1990 and 2000, but these trends may have been influenced by population in-migration and gentrification. The NYC public housing population has been less subject to these population shifts than those in other NYC neighborhoods. The reexamination compared changes in mortality rates (MRs) from 1989–1991 to 1999–2001 among residents of NYC census blocks consisting entirely of public housing residences with residents of nonpublic housing low-income and higher-income blocks While mortality rate ratios between low-income and higher-income residents narrowed by 8%, the relative disparity between public housing and low-income residents widened by 21%. Diseases amenable to prevention including malignancies, diabetes, and chronic lung disease contributed to the increased overall mortality disparity between public housing and lower-income residents. These findings temper previous findings that inequalities in the health of poor and wealthier NYC neighborhood residents have narrowed. NYC public housing residents should be a high-priority population for efforts to reduce health disparities. The objective was to examine mortality trends in residents of low-income neighborhoods compared to more affluent neighborhoods while reducing the potential influence of secular compositional and contextual changes in the neighborhoods due to migration and changing poverty concentration.

 

Higgins, Michelle. “Where to Next?.” New York Times, vol. 165, no. 57156, 28 Feb. 2016, pp. 1-10. EBSCOhost, ccny-            proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true    &db=a9h&AN=113399421&site=ehost-live.

The article looks at how home buyers in New York City are attempting to find neighborhoods that have yet to become popular. It discusses how neighborhoods with access to public transportation and rising real estate values are likely to become more gentrified. Noted neighborhoods featured include Sunset Park West, Brooklyn, The Rockaways, Queens, and Flatbush, Brooklyn. When reading the article, it noticeably represents the ignorance of the “yuppie” attitude towards up and coming neighborhoods, which is an important contributing factor towards gentrification. They tend to act as though they are discovering a hidden gem in the city and attempt to redevelop what is currently there. The more upper middle class folk move out here, the more the neighborhood changes and forces out its original inhabitants due to increase in value and socioeconomic shift.

 

Newman, Kathe and Elvin K. Wyly. “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City.” Urban Studies (Routledge), vol. 43, no. 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 23-57. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00420980500388710.

A new generation of quantitative research has provided new evidence of the limited (and sometimes counter-intuitive) extent of displacement, supporting broader theoretical and political arguments favoring mixed-income redevelopment and other forms of gentrification. The aforementioned research is supported using highly nuanced terms – such as reinvestment, renewal, and revitalization – as opposed to the term gentrification, which involves direct, conflict ridden displacement. The new evidence on displacement is being used to dismiss concerns about a wide range of market-oriented urban policies of privatization, home-ownership, ‘social mix’ and dispersal strategies designed to break up the concentrated poverty that has been taken as the shorthand explanation for all that ails the disinvested inner city. This paper offers a critical challenge to this interpretation, drawing on evidence from a mixed-methods study of gentrification and displacement in New York City. It aims to understand the full implications of displacement processes, which are claimed to be largely a result of long-term industrial and occupational change.

 

Pearsall, Hamil. “Moving out or Moving In? Resilience to Environmental Gentrification in New York City.” Local Environment, vol. 17, no. 9, Oct. 2012, pp. 1013-1026. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13549839.2012.714762.

Ecological gentrification refers to the ways in which urban sustainability efforts that lack adequate attention to the social justice dimension of environmental change can produce gentrification, resulting in displacement and financial burden for the most vulnerable urban denizens. The recent efforts to remediate and revitalize former industrial urban waterfronts for residential and commercial uses, as promoted by New York City’s sustainability plan, PlaNYC 2030, amplified gentrification in the following neighborhoods: the Greenpoint neighborhood in North Brooklyn, the Gowanus Canal neighborhood in Southwest Brooklyn, and Stuyvesant Town on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A series of interviews with long-time residents in these three neighborhoods examined how households have adapted to gentrification. This study attempts to better understand the experiences of residents who were able to remain in their neighborhoods and in some cases play active roles in their communities during periods of rapid socio-economic change facilitated by gentrification.

 

Shamsuddin, Shomon and Lawrence J. Vale. “Lease It or Lose It? The Implications of New York’s Land Lease Initiative for Public Housing Preservation.” Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.), vol. 54, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 137-157. EBSCOhost,                                          doi:10.1177/0042098015614248.

The Land Lease Initiative (proposed to lever- age private development to benefit low-income residents by supporting market-rate residential construction on open space in public housing sites to pay for needed improvements to subsidized units) was a seemingly win-win plan but quickly faced backlash from multiple quarters. Using interviews with key housing authority officials and analysis of plan documents and media coverage, the article shows how the content and framing of the plan stoked fears of displacement, despite stated intentions. The analysis reveals that criticism overlooked four unconventional ideas for preserving public housing, which are embedded in the plan: 1) retaining all public housing units and high-rise public housing towers on site, as opposed to demolishing them; 2) deconcentrating poverty by increasing residential density, instead of displacing poor residents; 3) adding affordable housing units to the site of low-income public housing; and 4) creating mixed- income communities around buildings, in addition to within them. The findings suggest that the future of affordable housing in the neoliberal era involves blurring the line between preservation and privatization.