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

在过去的几十年里，美国城市地区的士绅化程度有所增加，经济不平等程度也在加剧。此外，没有足够的经济适用房来满足需求。大衰退加剧了这一问题，收紧了本已受限的租房者的住房市场。随着城市士绅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。这个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？房东在哪些方面放大或对抗与士绅化相关的社区变化？房东的行为或不作为如何影响不同社会群体进入社区的机会？了解房东如何理解和应对与士绅化相关的社区变化，以及这一变化对包括或排除各种人口群体的影响，将有助于更好地理解影响美国种族和经济住宅隔离的因素。该项目的发现将对美国的住房政策产生影响。关于中产阶级化的研究认为，房东是中产阶级化过程的一部分，但很少有研究提供经验证据来分析这些说法。大多数中产阶级化研究的焦点都集中在居民(包括新居民和长期居民)的经历上，而对中产阶级化社区的房东的分析却很少。这个项目将通过分析住宅和商业房东如何在与绅士化相关的社区变化的背景下理解他们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城市四个中产阶级化社区的房东和物业经理进行的50次深度、半结构化的采访。该项目将包括物业经理，因为他们在租赁住房关系中扮演着房东和租户之间的中间人的独特地位。此外，为了更好地了解租房维护和保养的日常活动，该项目纳入了人种学田野调查，作为对访谈数据进行三角测量的一种手段。该研究项目的民族志部分涉及履行一家大型租赁房地产公司的维修技术员的职责。这个项目将通过解决房东研究方面的差距，分析房东是否在住宅和商业房地产交易中扮演守门人的角色，并利用与房东一起参与观察的策略，允许第一手观察他们的投资、维护和租赁协议实践，为学术做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.