Spatial Differentials in Residential Displacement

Because existing research treats residential displacement as a consequence of housing market conditions associated with the urban core, the incidence of displacement is thought to be greater in: (1) metropolitan areas than nonmetropolitan areas, (2) the ‘urban heartland’ than other regions of the country, (3) central cities than suburbs, and (4) older, inner-city neighborhoods than younger, peripheral ones. Data from the US Annual Housing Survey are analyzed and case studies of individual cities are reviewed to test these four spatial hypotheses. While the strength of the evidence favoring the hypotheses depends in part upon the type of displacement rate employed, spatial contrasts in displacement generally appear to be less marked than the literature suggests. We attribute the lack of convincing support for the hypotheses to housing market pressures operating at the national level that generate involuntary mobility across all geographical sectors of the population.