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，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。大衰退加剧了这一问题，收紧了已经受到限制的租房市场。 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。该项目研究房东如何在这些条件下运作。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作用？房东以何种方式放大或对抗与中产阶级化相关的邻里变化？房东的作为或不作为如何影响各种社会群体进入社区？了解房东如何理解和应对与中产阶级化相关的邻里变化，以及这种变化对包括或排除各种人口群体的影响，将有助于加深对美国种族和经济居住隔离因素的理解。项目的研究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。大多数中产阶级化研究的重点是居民（包括新居民和长期居民）的经历，而对中产阶级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中产阶级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城市四个中产阶级社区的房东和物业经理进行的50次深入的半结构化访谈。该项目将包括物业管理人员，因为他们在出租房屋关系中作为房东和房客之间的中介人占据独特的地位。此外，为了更好地了解租赁房地产维护和保养的日常活动，该项目采用了人种学实地调查，作为对访谈数据进行三角测量的一种手段。该研究项目的人种学部分涉及为一家大型租赁真实的房地产公司履行维修技术员的职责。该项目将通过解决房东研究中的差距，分析房东是否在住宅和商业真实的房地产交易中充当看门人，并通过利用与房东的参与观察策略，允许第一手观察他们的投资，维护，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的评估，被认为是值得支持的。影响审查标准。

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.