A Method for Making the Just City: Housing, Gentrification, and Health

ABSTRACTA gentrification wave is sweeping across metropolitan America, yet we know very little about the health consequences of this current neighborhood redevelopment trend across different community contexts. This article describes an interdisciplinary, comparative, community-based participatory action (CBPA) research project investigating how housing, community change, and health are connected. We first discuss the linkages among America’s affordable housing crisis, increased rates of gentrification, and health concerns for low-income people in revitalizing neighborhoods. We then lay out our initial hypotheses of how early- and late-stage gentrification processes might affect the health of low-income residents. This is followed by an explanation of how our CBPA approach influenced and altered our gentrification-related research questions and methods. This article contributes to the housing and community development literature by explaining an innovative theoretical and methodological framework for unde...