Recent trends of lower-income and minority populations leaving increasingly expensive cities for suburbs have led to several theorists arguing that the suburbs are undergoing a process of urbanization. Fewer, however, have argued that cities themselves are becoming suburbanized as a result or function of gentrification. Theoretical discussions on gentrification and suburbanization are often kept separate, but in this paper, I argue that both are critical to understand current trends in gentrified or currently gentrifying neighborhoods in both Detroit and Chicago. Suburbs have experienced continuous population growth, even while their neighboring cities have experienced dramatic losses. The demographics of those leaving the cities for the suburbs have shifted, with more lower-income and people of color making the suburbs their home. In this paper, I focus on four neighborhoods across the two cities: Lafayette Park and Corktown in Detroit, and Kenwood and Wicker Park in Chicago. Using maps of zoning districts, housing types, and population density created with GIS, as well as interviews with 16 residents, I find that the commercial landscape and general "feel" of these neighborhoods, as described by residents, have begun to more closely resemble the suburbs. Based on these findings, I offer recommendations for urban planning departments to encourage mixed-use developments in revitalizing neighborhoods without displacing current residents. Both Detroit and Chicago have experienced population loss in recent decades; creating neighborhood structures that are amenable for all socioeconomic levels is critical to staunch the loss of urban residents to other locales.
Grace Peguese (Thu,) studied this question.