From disinvestment to reinvestment: Tax arrears and turning points in the east village

Abstract The gentrification process is often conceived as establishing a ‘new urban frontier’. Despite the dismissive cultural connotations of this imagery there may be an underlying economic rationale to the frontier theme. After a discussion of the dynamics of disinvestment in the housing market and the relationship between disinvestment and reinvestment, we analyse tax arrears data in order to investigate the turning point when disinvestment is superseded by reinvestment in New York City's East Village. We establish a technique for identifying the historical and geographical origins of reinvestment associated with gentrification and for tracing the geographical diffusion of this process in the urban landscape. In the East Village, the closing of the gentrification frontier line occurred much earlier than is generally thought.