Introduction to GIS

Gentrification in Worcester: Its Likely Expansion

and Relation to Neighborhood Demographics

Professor Yelena Ogeva-Himmelberger

Erika Rivera and Andrew Riely

errivera@clarku.edu, ariely@clarku.edu
Abstract

Drawing upon local, state, and Federally-collected data, this project identified properties

in Worcester, Massachusetts that are vulnerable to gentrification and examined demographic

changes in the surrounding neighborhoods. It found that, as is typical in many cities, the

properties most vulnerable to gentrification are close to downtown amenities, in neighborhoods

that are relatively low-income and racially diverse. While it anticipates that these areas are likely

to experience significant turnover in their population, following an established pattern of rising

educational attainment that correlates with increases in median housing value, it raises questions

about whether these areas are also becoming whiter, as is typical among places that gentrify.

Problem Statement and Objectives

This past summer, the Worcester City Council approved its downtown revitalization plan,

which aims to increase the neighborhoods residential population and retail opportunities

(Kotsopoulos, 2016). The MBTA commuter rail line connecting Worcester to Boston now offers

direct service to Back Bay and South Station, making residence in Worcester while working in

Boston feasible (Moulton, 2016). Real estate prices in Boston and its western suburbs continue to

soar, while the renovation and construction of five hundred new apartments near Union Station,

marketed as the Grid, is imminent. Worcester may be on the cusp of a wave of gentrification.

Using GIS analysis, particularly in the software program ArcMap, this project has two goals:

first, to identify properties that are most likely to be bought up and remodeled as part of this

wave of development, and second, to consider its impacts on neighborhood demographics.

Defining gentrification is essential to our project so that we can identify drivers and

indicators of neighborhood change. A robust debate has taken place among scholars over the
phenomenons causes and characteristics (Hamnett, 1991). Liberal humanists emphasize the

importance of consumer demand in urban transformations, emphasizing individual choice and

new cultural and consumptive tastes among workers in service and information industries (Ley,

1996), while Marxists stress the return of capital to the city, class rigidity, and the growing

production of spaces amenable to gentrification by real estate and banking interests (Smith,

1979). Most of the original participants in this exchange have modified their theories to at least

partially accommodate alternative theories, while newer generations of scholars have

emphasized a more theoretically integrative approach (Hamnett, 1991). Hamnett (1984) refers to

gentrification as Simultaneously a physical, economic, social, and cultural phenomenon in his

widely cited definition, continuing:

Gentrification commonly involves the invasion by middle-class or higher-income groups

of previously working-class neighbourhoods or multi-occupied twilight areas and the
replacement or displacement of many of the original occupants. It involves the physical
renovation or rehabilitation of what was frequently a highly deteriorated housing stock
and its upgrading to meet the requirements of its new owners. In the process, housing in
the areas affected, both renovated and unrenovated, undergoes a significant price
appreciation. Such a process of neighbourhood transition commonly involves a degree of
tenure transformation from renting to owning.

Accordingly, this project focused on the potential for housing redevelopment and demographic

turnover in the surrounding neighborhood.

Predictions of gentrifications routes of diffusion appear to be relatively rare, at least in

academic literature, but several such studies (none peer-reviewed) have been conducted by

municipal governments and non-profits. In Washington, DC, DC Agenda, a local non-profit,

distinguished between indicators of future and current gentrification (Rubin, 2002). For the

former, they identified a high rate of renting, ease of access to job centers, access to public

transportation, growth in traffic, architectural amenities, and low housing values. Movement

from renting to ownership, higher down payments on property purchases, and influxes of
creative class members and associated amenities suggested the existence of gentrification. A

study commissioned by the city of Portland, Oregon, also relied on a dual definition of

gentrification (Bates, 2013). However, it focused primarily on housing market appreciation as

well as demographic indicators of vulnerability such as race (i.e. persons of color), lack of

income, and low educational attainment, asserting that displacement of such persons is an

indicator of gentrification already in process.

While studies vary considerably, the literature generally suggests that drivers of

gentrification fall into two basic categories: economic (including transportation) and cultural,

while its existence is associated with demographic turnover and increases in the value of housing

stock. Our own analysis will highlight these particular features and outcomes.

Data

Based on our survey of other studies on gentrification, our data consists of two layer

types: demographic information and causal factors of gentrification. All files are in vector

format.

Layer Source and Date Type

Worcester Parcels City of Worcester GIS Database, Polygon

2014.
Worcester Building Values City of Worcester GIS Database, Data Table

2014.
Worcester Arts District MassGIS Polygon

MBTA Commuter Rail and Mass GIS, 2015 Line

Stations
Worcester Demographics ACS 2013, ACS 2014, Esri Data Polygon
 2015

Methodology

Our project diverged along two different paths one focused on identifying vulnerable

properties and the other on neighborhood demographic change but we have combined the

processes in the following verbal explanations of our various steps. However, we have included

simplified flow charts to illustrate our individual processes, as well, which can be found in our

Figures and Tables appendix (see Figures 1 & 2), to accompany this step-by-step explanation.

1) Project each shapefile needed to be projected into the same format as the relevant data frame

either NAD 1983 StatePlane Massachusetts Mainland FIPS 2001 Feet or NAD 1983 UTM

Zone 19N.

2) Clip most of our data was downloaded at the state level. Therefore, we clipped it around a

Worcester city boundary file to speed subsequent data analysis.

3) Join we attached a database table containing building values to a Worcester parcel polygon

file. We also used join to add the tables for ACS 2013 and Esri 2015 to the Blockgroup feature

classes respective geodatabases, as well as to join the two datasets in order to calculate change

over time.

4) Field Calculator We used field calculator to attain basic calculations for block groups

regarding percentage of total population with a BA degree or higher, percentage of white

population, percentage with BA degree or higher, change in percent white population, change in

percent BA degree or higher, and change in total home values.

5) Symbology by manipulating this module, we were able to visually represent the intensity of

various demographic characteristics of the various block groups, as well as how they were

projected to change between 2013 and 2015.

6) Select by attribute we used query by attribute to extract the data on residential building

value, in particular (the data for property land values in the Worcester database table contained

too many omissions to allow analysis). Next, we selected for buildings valued between $200,000

and $500,000 the logic being that these buildings are cheap enough that they can be

redeveloped and sold at a substantial profit but not so cheap that the building is largely decrepit.

7) Select by location from the selection described in Step 6, we chose properties that lie within

one mile of Union Station and the Worcester Arts District. These properties are thus within

walking distance of significant cultural and transportation amenities, which, based on our survey

of the literature, we expect gentrifiers to value highly. We also used this tool to identify block

groups that are within one mile from Union Station and meet all three criteria (increasing white

population, increasing educational attainment, and increasing home values) which we calculated

in Step 4.

8) Comparison we placed the map of vulnerable buildings against a background of

demographic data from the American Community Survey, aggregated at the block group level

and allowing us to observe current neighborhood characteristics.

9) Intersect This tool allowed us to identify block groups where at least two of the three

indicators of gentrification highlighted by Steps 4 and 5 are intensifying. For example, it captures

areas with increasing white population and increasing home values or areas with increasing

degree attainment and increasing home values.

Results

Not surprisingly, given the criteria we chose as gentrifications causal factors, our

analysis shows that buildings most vulnerable to gentrification cluster close to downtown, within

walking distance of transportation and cultural amenities (see Figure 3).

Superimposing our layer of vulnerable buildings against neighborhood demographic

maps, as gathered from the American Community Surveys five-year sample between 2010 and

2014, reveals that the local block group populations have relatively low median incomes and

relatively low, though somewhat varied, percentages of white population (see Figures 4 & 5).

Therefore, as our literature review suggests, these neighborhoods fit the profile of areas on the

brink of gentrification, suggesting that significant displacement may ensue as properties are

bought up, redeveloped, and sold at considerable profit.

In addition, our maps showing demographic changes (see Figures 6, 7, & 8), which are

based on a comparison between 2013 ACS five-year sample and Esri projected data for 2015,

indicate that Worcester is generally becoming less white. A few exceptions to this pattern exist

but, surprisingly, only a handful are found among the block groups containing properties that are

most vulnerable to gentrification. The city is also becoming better educated as a whole, with

particular gains in the downtown region. Finally, median home values are increasing

substantially downtown as well, outpacing gains in other parts of the city. Thus, our results

include findings that are somewhat at odds with the literature, which associates increases in

educational attainment and median home value with gains in white population. Only a few

neighborhoods, as yet, seem to follow the classic path of demographic change associated with

gentrification (see Figure 9).

Conclusion

In general, our findings about which buildings and block groups are most vulnerable to

gentrification in Worcester are similar to the results of other scholars; given that we used some of

these studies to support selecting particular causal criteria for our own analysis, this should not

come as a surprise. However, the discrepancy in our analysis of demographic change around

downtown Worcester specifically, the limited number of neighborhoods where full-bore

gentrification is apparently taking place demands more interpretation. It could be that

development will follow a different path in this city, maintaining a more racially diverse

population in the neighborhoods undergoing significant change even as home values and

educational characteristics of local inhabitants shift substantially. However, it is also quite

possible that the data on which we have based our analysis of demographic change, which are,

after all, only a projection produced by Esri, are flawed. Only time and data collection will tell.

Further research on the extent of displacement due to gentrification, particularly its demographic

impacts, will also shed more light on the specific impacts of the process.
Figures and Tables

Figure 1

Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6

Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
References
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http://www.telegram.com/news/20160829/worcester-urban-renewal-plan-moves-ahead.

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