RUI: Collaborative Proposal: Gatekeeping Communities: The Role of Landlords in Neighborhood Change and Gentrification

在过去的几十年里，美国城市地区的中产阶级化有所增加，同时经济不平等也在加剧。此外，没有足够的经济适用房来满足需求。大衰退（Great Recession）加剧了这一问题，对租房者来说，本已紧张的住房市场变得更加紧张。随着城市中产阶级化和租赁住房市场变得更具挑战性，房东在提供或禁止获得住房方面发挥着重要作用。本项目研究房东在这些条件下是如何运作的。该项目解决了以下研究问题：房东如何理解他们在住宅和商业环境中的角色？房东如何放大或抵制与中产阶级化相关的社区变化？房东的作为或不作为如何影响不同社会群体进入社区？了解房东如何理解和应对与中产阶级化相关的社区变化，以及这种变化对包括或排除各种人口群体的影响，将有助于加深对形成美国种族和经济住宅隔离的因素的理解。项目结果将对美国的住房政策产生影响。对中产阶级化的研究认为房东是中产阶级化过程的一部分，但很少有研究提供实证证据来分析这些说法。大多数高档化研究的重点是居民（包括新居民和长期居民）的经历，而对高档化社区的房东的分析却很少。该项目将通过分析住宅和商业业主如何理解他们在与士绅化相关的社区变化背景下的角色来解决这一差距。该项目的主要数据将来自对美国东北部一个大型城市四个高档化社区的房东和物业经理的50次深度、半结构化访谈。该项目将包括物业经理，因为他们在租赁住房关系中作为房东和租户之间的中介，占据着独特的地位。此外，为了更好地了解租赁物业维护和保养的日常活动，该项目将人种学田野调查作为三角测量访谈数据的一种手段。研究项目的人种学部分包括为一家大型租赁房地产公司履行维修技术人员的职责。该项目将通过解决房东研究的空白，分析房东是否在住宅和商业房地产交易中充当看门人，以及利用与房东的参与性观察策略，允许对他们的投资，维护和租赁协议实践进行第一手观察，从而有助于学术研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

During the last few decades there has been an increase in gentrification in urban areas in the United States, as well as increasing economic inequality. In addition, there is not enough affordable housing to meet demand. The Great Recession exacerbated this problem, tightening an already constrained housing market for renters. Landlords play a significant role in providing or prohibiting access to housing as cities gentrify and rental housing markets become more challenging. This project studies how landlords operate under these conditions. The project addresses the following research questions: How do landlords make sense of their role in both residential and commercial contexts? In what ways do landlords amplify or counter neighborhood changes associated with gentrification? How do the actions or inactions of landlords affect access to neighborhoods for various social groups? Understanding how landlords make sense of and react to neighborhood changes associated with gentrification, and the impact of this on including or excluding various demographic groups, will allow for increased understanding of the factors that shape racial and economic residential segregation in the United States. Project findings will have implications for housing policies in the United States. Research on gentrification theorizes that landlords are part of the gentrification process, but few studies have provided empirical evidence to analyze these claims. The focus of most gentrification research has been on the experiences of residents (both new and long-time residents)while analyses of landlords in gentrifying neighborhoods have been sparse. This project will address this gap by analyzing how both residential and commercial landlords understand their roles in the context of neighborhood changes associated with gentrification. The primary data for this project will come from 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with landlords and property managers in four gentrifying neighborhoods in a large northeastern U.S. city. The project will include property managers because they occupy a unique position as intermediaries between landlords and tenants in the rental housing relationship. In addition, in order to better understand the day-to-day activities of rental property maintenance and upkeep, the project incorporates ethnographic fieldwork as a means of triangulating the interview data. The ethnographic component of the research project involves performing the duties of a maintenance technician for a large rental real estate company. This project will contribute to scholarship by addressing the gap in research on landlords, analyzing whether landlords act as gatekeepers in both residential and commercial real estate transactions, and by utilizing a strategy of participant observation with landlords, allowing for firsthand observation of their investment, maintenance, and rental agreement practices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.