At a recent public city meeting at which a new development was shown on the screen, Amelia Valdez, Co-Chair of the Historic Westside Residents Association (HWRA) raised her hand. “Who lived there and where did they go?” she asked. Her question was met with silence. A new study by the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity (University of Minnesota Law School) offers an answer:
The displaced are pushed out to the suburbs where public transportation is less concentrated and is located away from employment centers. While the downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods have changed demographically to reflect more affluent and more educated residents, the suburbs have become the place where the displaced find more affordable housing choices. The bright blue on the interactive map is the dramatic change from less affluent to the more affluent. The color brown reflects a new concentration of the less affluent. The map is based on the 2000-2016 census tract. It is not hard to predict where the trends it points to are today.