Can urban renewal policies reverse neighborhood ethnic dynamics?
研究评估了2004-2010年西班牙加泰罗尼亚地区一项城市更新政策对社区人口动态的影响，发现该政策对吸引本地人和高收入群体效果甚微，但巴塞罗那历史街区的改造加速了绅士化进程。
This article assesses the impact on neighborhood population dynamics of a major urban renewal policy that was implemented in Catalonia (Spain) between 2004 and 2010. The policy involved sizeable investments in the public spaces and facilities of some of the most deprived neighborhoods in the region. Besides seeking to improve the quality of life in the treated neighborhoods, one of the policy’s goals was to attract natives and high income individuals and, as a consequence, reduce the concentration of poverty and immigration. The control group comprises rejected projects and projects accepted toward the end of the programs which, due to a fall in public tax revenues, were never executed. The results indicate that the urban renewal projects had little (if any) effect on population dynamics, suggesting that substantial investment in public spaces and facilities in deprived neighborhoods is insufficient to attract natives and/or high-income households. The interventions made in Barcelona’s historic districts, however, seem to constitute an exception as, here, the policy seems to have accelerated gentrification in the deprived neighborhoods of central Barcelona.