Mission

Despite five decades of legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in lending and housing, racial residential segregation and neighborhood inequalities persist across U.S. cities, serving as key structural barriers to racial equality. Neighborhood change and the spread of gentrification has had the potential to reduce segregation and improve the opportunities in vulnerable neighborhoods, but is instead rapidly reshaping neighborhoods with growing, and disproportionately disadvantageous, effects on low-income people of color. 

The Changing Cities Research Lab at Stanford University, led by Jackelyn Hwang, Assistant Professor of Sociology, aims to use innovative data and methods to study the relationship between contemporary changes in U.S. cities and the durability of neighborhood inequality and segregation. With a focus on gentrification and racial stratification, we study the causes and consequences of these urban changes and we develop methods to measure these changes. By improving our understanding of urban change, we aim to advance policy solutions that promote equity as cities change.