Voorhees Gentrification Index Released
The Socioeconomic Change of Chicago’s Communities (1970-2020)
Since the 1970s Chicago’s neighborhoods have undergone drastic transformations as a result of macro level socioeconomic shifts as well as local policy initiatives. Most striking are trends of rapid gentrification in particular neighborhoods contrasted starkly with neighborhoods that have experienced prolonged population loss, disinvestment and marginalization.
The Voorhees Gentrification Index has been a useful research tool both to identify neighborhood change and to communicate a large amount of data in a way that is easy to understand, easy to use and to identify areas for further analysis. When introduced 18 years ago, and updated in 2015, it was used by many organizations and researchers as well as the media to succinctly identify communities in Chicago undergoing neighborhood change. The new work updates the existing Voorhees Gentrification Index identifying not only Chicago community areas that show signs of change, but also illustrating neighborhood change at the census tract level. This allows for a more nuanced assessment of neighborhood change within community areas.
Utilizing Census and LTDB data, the report’s authors examine which community areas have remained stable, which ones have declined, and which ones have upgraded from 1970-2020, with a distinct focus on 2010-2020. They found the 2000s was the decade in which the most communities experienced positive change. From 2000-2010, core communities adjacent to the Loop, the Near South Side and Near West Side experienced the largest upgrading of any community in the entire period. Logan Square also experienced positive change. West Town and Near South Side notably underwent positive change for two consecutive decades. In contrast, little neighborhood change occurred from 2010 to 2020 at the community area level. No communities experienced positive change or upgrading, and three experienced negative change, or neighborhood decline – West Ridge, Dunning, and Calumet Heights.
The report authors include April Jackson, associate professor, Department of Urban Planning and Policy and research affiliate, Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Andrew Greenlee, professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and director Illinois Housing Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Patrick Alcorn, doctoral student, Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The full report can be downloaded and is also available on the Voorhees Center website.