Policing Gentrification: Stops and Low–Level Arrests during Demographic Change and Real Estate Reinvestment

Abstract

Does low‐level policing increase during gentrification? If so, are police responding to increased crime, increased demand by new residents, or are they attempting to “clean up” neighborhoods marked for economic redevelopment? To address these questions, I construct a longitudinal dataset of New York City neighborhoods from 2009 to 2015. I compile data on neighborhoods’ demographics, street stops, low‐level arrests, crimes, 311 calls to the police, and—using a novel measure—property values. Maps, spatiotemporal modeling, and fixed effects regressions compare changes in stops and low‐level arrests to changes in several measures of gentrification. I find, on average, calls to the police increased after a neighborhood's middle‐class population grew. Calls did not translate into more stops or low‐level arrests, however. Net of crime and spatial autocorrelation, police made more order‐maintenance and proactive arrests following real estate market growth, suggesting development‐directed policing. Property value growth in wealthy and already gentrified neighborhoods was not associated with an increase in arrests, underscoring policing's role in early‐stage urban “renewal.” The article includes an analysis of three sources of property value data.

Examining privilege and power in US urban parks and open space during the double crises of antiblack racism and COVID-19

“…There is increasing evidence that gentrification is linked to changes in policing patterns that disproportionately harm BIPOC individuals, and intersecting trans residents and communities. The link between gentrification and increased policing has been documented both qualitatively (e.g., Maharawal 2017 ; Lyons et al 2017 ) and quantitatively (e.g., Beck 2020 ). The relationships between displacement, space, and illness in Black communities is well documented in biosocial psychology: the “root shock” of placelessness and the betrayal of trust in the government to protect all citizens causes direct and indirect harm to Black peoples’ physical health, mental health, and community health (Fullilove 2001 ).…”

More than Spare Change: A Case Study of Contact and Voter Support for the Homeless in Los Angeles County, California

“…Put simply, this pattern of support may not have been designed simply to address inequality, but to protect property values. Indeed, conceptualization of redistributive welfare for the homeless as an allocational service would put it in the same category as policing, which may be mobilized to address the threat that groups like the homeless may pose to gentrification and revitalization in urban areas (Beck 2020;Laniyonu 2018).…”

Crime and Neighborhood Change in the Nation’s Capital: From Disinvestment to Gentrification

“…And historically Black neighborhoods are Census tracts that were more than 50% Black in 1990. Because the mechanisms and consequences of gentrification for neighborhoods that were already gentrified are not identical with those for neighborhoods that are eligible to gentrify (Beck, 2020), our choice of such tracts allows us to consider the impacts of violent and property crimes across years on neighborhood changes in those neighborhoods most likely to change.…”