Gentrification Near Rail Transit Areas: A Micro-Data Analysis of Moves Into Los Angeles Metro Rail Station Areas

This report seeks to shed light on this latter concern. It begins with a brief summary of the evidence from prior studies on both rail-related housing price increases and changing composition. It then introduces a newly available data source, which we use to examine the relationship between new rail transit station opening and neighborhood income composition. This report aims to determine whether a rail station opening in Los Angeles County is associated with the share and income composition of residents who move in and out of neighborhoods near that rail station. Specifically, we address the following questions regarding gentrification and its tie to rail transit stations: \u2022 Who moves into rail-station neighborhoods and when? \u2022 Are higher income households growing as a share of station area population relative to lower-income households? \u2022 Do rail stations cause this phenomenon or is this happening regardless of the transit investment? The Los Angeles metropolitan area presents an ideal study area for analyzing transit-oriented development (TOD) and potential displacement. Prior to 1990, Los Angeles had not had any intra-urban rail transit service for decades. Since then, 93 new rail-transit stations (see Figure 1 for map) were opened by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (L.A. Metro) and an additional 17 are currently under construction (Boarnet et al., 2015). This buildout amounts to about half of the U.S. spending on new rail transit (L.A. Metro, 2009). Within L.A. Metro, 21% of its budget from 2005-2040 will go toward rail transit capital and operations expenditures (L.A. Metro, 2009). Concurrently, regional and local plans envision that over half of new housing and employment to occur within a half-mile of a well-serviced transit corridor, including rail (L.A. Metro, 2009; SCAG, 2012)

Do Rail Transit Stations Induce Displacement? [Policy Brief]

This research tests this perception by answering the following questions related to rail transit and household moves: Do rail transit stations affect residential move rates in surrounding neighborhoods? And, if so, then are lower income or long-term residents disproportionally displaced from the neighborhood

Do some enterprise zones create jobs?

We study how the employment effects of enterprise zones vary with their location, implementation, and administration, based on evidence from California. We use new establishment-level data and geographic mapping methods, coupled with a survey of enterprise zone administrators. Overall, the evidence indicates that enterprise zones do not increase employment. However, the evidence also suggests that the enterprise zone program has a more favorable effect on employment in zones that have a lower share of manufacturing and in zones where managers report doing more marketing and outreach activities. On the other hand, devoting more effort to helping firms get hiring tax credits reduces or eliminates any positive employment effects, which may be attributable to idiosyncrasies of California's enterprise zone program during the period we study. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.