The Great Recession and Neighborhood Change: The Case of Los Angeles County

Malia Jones, University of Southern California
Anne Pebley, University of California, Los Angeles

The Great Recession of 2007-2009 and concomitant mortgage crisis may have increased both income inequality and residential segregation. Racial minorities and people living in poverty, on average, had more vulnerable jobs and were more likely to have held subprime mortgages compared to affluent whites. These disproportionate effects of the recession on income and race/ethnic groups combined with patterns of residential segregation suggest that disadvantaged neighborhoods were the most likely to have declined during the recession. In this paper, we examine the effects of the recession on neighborhood change in Los Angeles County, California. Our research questions are: 1. How well do pre-recession neighborhood characteristics predict housing foreclosure and housing vacancy rates during and after the recession? 2. How have neighborhood-level foreclosure rates affected neighborhood succession subsequent to the recession? 3. What are the overall consequences of neighborhood-level changes due to the recession for residential segregation?