" No tiene la comunidad que yo amo”

Abstract

Residents and activists in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification have been raising alarm bells about its impact for decades. The promises that state and private funders and developers make about the benefits of neighborhood redevelopment are often overemphasized and/or unmet according to many in the communities who have experienced this change. The literature on the effects of capital reinvestment and urban renewal programs has shown mixed results, suggesting that poverty and crime rates tend to decrease as higher-income and educated residents move into these neighborhoods. However, evidence suggests that this may be the result of displacement of original residents and an influx of middle- and higher-income residents. Much of the existing research into the effects of gentrification follows from a political economy perspective, which often leaves out the personal and communal effect on residents’ psychological well-being. Though some recent work incorporates resident perspectives of the gentrification process, the field of social work has only recently begun engaging in understanding the impacts of gentrification This dissertation aims to address this key gap in the literature by exploring gentrification and associated neighborhood processes in partnership with residents from a Boston community undergoing gentrification. This dissertation is a predominantly qualitative study with an embedded quantitative analysis using ethnographic methods to understand how residents of the East Boston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts perceive their neighborhood. Specifically, the dissertation explored 1) the perception of individual and individual impacts of gentrification-related impact amongst long-time residents, 2) how residents make meaning of social control in the neighborhood as it relates to gentrification, and 3) the neighborhood-level spatial indicators of gentrification that contextualized residents’ perceptions. This overarching approach relied on community-level input and participation through four methods: 1) an ethnography, 2) walking interviews, 3) photovoice, and 4) geospatial analysis of gentrification-related indicators using administrative data in order to use a rich array of data to better understand how community members communicate their experiences in their neighborhood as it gentrifies.