Miami metro among most ‘intensely gentrified’ in U.S., study says
Gentrification is changing the Miami metro more rapidly than in most other U.S. regions, according to a recent study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach county area had the fourth-highest “intensity” of gentrification in the U.S. between 2013-2017, the report found.
Most of the region’s gentrification was concentrated in and around Wynwood, the study found, with areas such as Buena Vista and the Design District labeled as “gentrified.” Median household income rose by roughly $11,000 in the Midtown area from 2010 to 2017. Median home value there went up to $315,500 from $180,616 in that time period.
To determine which areas had gentrified, researchers looked at census tracts where household income, home values and education levels rose between 2012 and 2017.
Residents who once could afford to live in these neighborhood have been pushed out, forced to move further from jobs and community to find housing they can afford as Miami costs have skyrocketed.
Gentrification “is displacing people who live here and it’s causing homelessness,” said Annie Lord, executive director of Miami Homes for All, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Ultimately that’s our workforce. If low wage earners can’t find a place to live their quality of life plummets.”
Not only does gentrification segregate people into lower-opportunity neighborhoods , said Lord, it also dilutes the city’s cultural fabric.
“This is a part of our tourism industry,” she said. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot because we’re washing out the thing that makes people want to visit our place.”
Gentrification also concentrates resources in specific areas, potentially diverting them from other neighborhoods in need. “A lot of investment in one area means investment is not flowing elsewhere,” said Jason Richardson, report co-author and the coalition’s director of research.
Since the study period, gentrification has intensified even further as waterfront sites and Miami Beach have become fully developed, pushing residents and developers further inland. Neighborhoods near the core are most at risk.
Miami’s rapid expansion is largely to blame, said Ned Murray, associate director of the Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center at Florida International University, a finding born out in a 2019 Miami Herald series, Priced out of Paradise. “What’s striking about Miami’s downtown neighborhoods that were predominantly settled by people of color, immigrants and lower income people is just how strategically located they are.”
And gentrification begets gentrification, said Richardson. “Once one neighborhood gentrifies, it’s more likely that the one next to it will.” Portions of nearby Little Haiti have already been scooped up by developers.
The coalition defines gentrification as an influx of investment and changes that lead to a rise in incomes, home values and education levels of an area’s residents.
The study also looked at the overlap between gentrification and Opportunity Zones, a designation created through the federal 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which provides tax breaks to investments in lower income neighborhoods.
The researchers found a close link between neighborhoods that gentrified and Opportunity Zones.
Little is known about their impacts, said Bruce Mitchell, senior analyst for the coalition and co-author of the study. because so little is known about these zones. The federal government does not currently track who invests in these zones or what projects are funded, he said.
“If that development is in fact displacing people then that lack of tracking is extremely troubling to us,” Mitchell said.
In Miami-Dade, 67 such zones were designated in 2018, but according to Miami Herald reporting, many of the projects to date have consisted of real estate featuring rents that are out-of-sync with the income of its surrounding neighborhoods.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 7:00 AM.