“Gentrification—the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class residential and/or commercial use"
-Lees, Slater, and Wyly’s book Gentrification

Click on the tabs on the top left of the map to see future years.

Introduction

Light rail systems in Tacoma have their roots beginning back all the way in the late 19th century. In 1888, the Tacoma Street Railway began service which consisted of horse drawn carriages that could hold up to 14 passengers. A couple years later in 1890, the first electric streetcar in Tacoma came into service. Many railway companies started up in the following years, but there were only three companies left by 1928, and the whole system died out by the mid 1930s (Dunkelberger 2004). About 60 years later Sound Transit restarted light rail in Tacoma with a vote in 1996 which approved a tax to build a new light rail line. Sound Transit completed five stations in 2003 and an additional station in 2011. There are three new extensions being constructed in the next couple decades. The Hilltop extension will be completed in 2022 and include six new stations and one relocated station. The Tacoma Dome extension will be completed in 2030 and add stations from the Tacoma Dome Station to Federal Way and Fife. The Tacoma Community College extension will be completed by 2039 and include five new stations from Hilltop to Tacoma Community College (Sound Transit 2019). These extensions will change the socio-economic environment greatly. Lessons from the effects of other light rail systems could better prepare Tacoma for anticipated changes.

Gentrification has been defined as “the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class residential or commercial use” (Lees et al. 2008). Gentrification is inherently class based, and it is not necessarily a racial phenomenon, so this project will focus on the former. For the most part lower-income, working class minorities are replaced by higher income, middle-class minorities in many places (McKinnish et al. 2009). Gentrification is a problem in many areas, and new light rail systems can influence the development of gentrification. Investments into transit and transit oriented development can cause gentrification to occur, so it really depends on whether or not the city and planners develop transit oriented development plans. Gentrification of areas around light rail stations vary heavily based on factors such as transit oriented design (TOD) and state-led design programs. Higher property values and rents encourage displacement of existing people, businesses, and social services. Socio-economic factors like income, rent, housing values, and educational attainment are the main indicators of gentrification, but there are others not included in this project. Changes in property value are tied to gentrification, so this project will look at property value changes as well as these other factors.

The main research objectives for this project are 1) find out what the effects of gentrification are, and why it occurs around light rail transit, 2) measure the effects of gentrification around existing light rail transit stations in Tacoma, and 3) predict how gentrification in Tacoma will change as the light rail stations are built and expanded. This will be accomplished by looking at how gentrification affects light rail systems. I used the Mann-Whitney U Test to test for significant differences to answer the second question. I created a web map of the predicted changes that will occur when the light rail station expands to answer the third question. This project will examine how gentrification occurs based on the socio-economic factors stated above. At the end of this project, the final product will be a visualization of how spaces change when gentrification occurs. The first research question about about the effects of gentrification can be answered by looking at existing literature about gentrification and examining the transit investments and TOD principles used for new light rail developments. The second and third research questions will be answered by the analysis and prediction completed about Tacoma.