Neighborhood change in Cincinnati, Ohio, 2000-2016: The effect of the Great Recession

ABSTRACT

The Great Recession of 2008 had a tremendous impact on the economic vitality of neighborhoods in the cities of the U.S. This paper looks at the effect that the Recession had on neighborhood change in Cincinnati (Hamilton County). The county’s 222 census tracts are classified into five categories: poor; urban-upgrading; working-class; middle-class, and elite tracts. 31.1% of census tracts changed their classification between 2000 and 2016 and most of this changed resulted in a downgrading of the tract’s status from 2000. Tracts which economically upgraded were in areas of the city which received large financial investments after 2000 for urban revitalization. Several working-class/upper middle-class tracts at the suburb-city interface downgraded between 2000 and 2016. It is likely that many of these tracts were adversely affected by the housing crisis and Great Recession which significantly affected the welfare of working-class/middle-class households.

KEYWORDS:

• Neighborhood change
• Great Recession
• Cincinnati

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Socio-economic variables in the analysis include: median household income; median housing value; percentage of population over age 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree; percentage of population over age 60; number of African-Americans per tract; percentage of the population that is foreign-born; percentage of the population residing in a non-family household; percentage of the labor force employed in manufacturing; and percentage of population residing in owner-occupied housing.

2. Because the hierarchical cluster analysis combines both 2000 and 2016 socio-economic variables in the equation it was necessary to convert all variables to z-scores which allowed the use of both 2000 and 2016 variables to be used in the analysis. Conversion to z-scores also helped to minimize standard deviations between different variables that may have had a greater effect on the results.

3. The number of structures in discriminant analysis is always one less than the number of clusters (See Hill et al., 1998 for detailed information).

4. The 2000 decennial census recorded mobility as residence 5 years prior to 2000 whereas the ACS uses a 1- year prior residence to establish mobility.

5. The increase in number of poor tracts over the study period is largely a result of Cluster 3 (working-class tracts) downgrading to Cluster 1.

6. Urban Upgrading tracts moving to working-class tracts are considered a downgrade due to lower housing values and lower educational levels.