What Drives Neighborhood Revival?

We conduct a case study of neighborhood revival in St. Louis and Baltimore, two legacy cities showing both significant signs of revival along with persistent poverty and neighborhood distress. Looking at neighborhoods that showed significant change in household income, educational attainment and house value between 1990 and 2000, and 2000 and 2014, we find that reviving neighborhoods in both cities share key features. All had market potential based on being well-situated spatially relative to existing strong neighborhoods, major amenities and/or anchor institutions, as well as having an intact, attractive neighborhood fabric. All were the subject of interventions that changed that market potential into effect demand for the neighborhood’s housing stock. We discuss the nature of those interventions in detail and propose a model of neighborhood revival, as well as explore why certain neighborhoods revived while others didn’t, as well as the racial and economic equity implications of these neighborhoods’ revival.