Housing Displacement in Brooklyn - Preliminary Findings

Aviva Zeltzer-ZubidaDepartment of SociologyBrooklyn College/CUNY

June 2006

Big Questions: Are people in Brooklyn experiencing housing

displacement? If so, where does it happen? If so, who does it happen to? If so, where do the people go?

Big Problems: It is very hard to measure housing displacement in a

large scale, systematic way (no data, local phenomenon).

There is relatively little research on the topic.

Little Solutions: Use 2000 census data to explore patterns

related to housing displacement in Brooklyn. Compare with 1990 census data to observe

changes across time. Identify tracts where displacement happened

or might happen in the future and conduct qualitative studies.

Demographic Characteristics % white % foreign born % large family HH (7+)median per capita income in 1999% dense rentals (rooms with 2.01+ Occupants)

Residence characteristics% owner occupied units % owner occupied new houses (1900-2000) % recent renters (1995-2000) % living in same house since 1995 % young adult recent movers (35-44 yo)% small units (2- bedrooms)

Housing costs% HH paying low rent ($300-$599) % HH spending more than half of income on rent % owner occupied high cost houses ($1,000,000 or more)

Exploring Brooklyn – Stage 1

Segregated Diversity

Preliminary data analysis of the 2000 census suggests that although, in general, Brooklyn in a diverse borough, it is segregated at the tract level.

The correlation between the different characteristics of the tracts suggests that the segregation is multi-faceted.

Demographic characteristics, Residence characteristics and Housing costs seem to vary simultaneously.

Further analysis points to the existence of 4 major types of tracts in Brooklyn.

For lack of better names, they will be called – type 1,2,3 and 4. Your help with names will be appreciated…

12090

20896

71545

36586

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

median per capita income in 1999

type 1 type 2 type 3 type 4

Differences in median per capita income

Source: 2000 US Census (SF-3)

type 3, 47690, 2%

type 2, 810133, 33%

type 1, 1420675, 57%

type 4, 186828, 8%

Population Distribution Across Types

Source: 2000 US Census (SF-3)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

% white % owneroccupied units

% young adultrecent movers

(35-44 yo)

% small units (2or less

bedrooms)

% HH paying lowrent ($300-$599)

% HH spending%50+ of income

on rent

type 1 type 2

Differences in other indicators (types 1 and 2)

Source: 2000 US Census (SF-3)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

% white % owneroccupied units

% young adultrecent movers

(35-44 yo)

% small units (2or less

bedrooms)

% HH paying lowrent ($300-$599)

% HH spending%50+ of income

on rent

type 1 type 3 type 4

Differences in other indicators (types 1,3 and 4)

Source: 2000 US Census (SF-3)

Orange next to Blue

or Yellow

– Risk of

Displacement!

Source: 2000 US Census (SF-3)

Places to look at…

So where do we go from here?

Explore further the relationship between social segregation and the risk of housing displacement Compare 2000 data with previous years Compare Brooklyn with other boroughs and cities Conduct qualitative studies of specific locations Think about policy implications and action plans...