How to identify a gentrifying area?
Pilates, goat’s cheese: there goes the neighbourhood
This article in last week’s Age talks about Northcote and Maribyrnong and how they have become gentrified.
While you can’t find too much about pilates, goats’ cheese pizzas and Subarus from Darebin’s community profile, it’s not too hard to see whether an area is gentrifying, and in the case of these two suburbs, the article isn’t picking up on anything new, it’s been happening for quite some time!
Gentrification is the process by which certain suburbs which had historically been poorer areas are “discovered” by population groups with higher income and (likely) higher education levels, which pushes up housing prices and rents, as well as often the cost of living, in many cases pushing lower income people out of the area.
In many areas of inner Melbourne and Sydney, this has been happening for a long time, and in some suburbs (eg. Richmond in Melbourne, Erskineville in Sydney), the only places left with low income populations are social housing estates.
The clearest indicator of gentrification in demographic profiling is to use household income. To see whether incomes are changing over time, in .id’s demographic profiles, use the “Household income quartiles” section, found under “Who are we? – > What is our household income?” on the second tab.
It’s important to use quartiles because it adjusts for the effects of inflation and lets you see real world change relative to the metropolitan average, rather than nominal changes in dollar values.
In the case of Northcote’s income, over a 5, 10 or 15 year time period to 2006, it’s very clear that there have been declines among households in the lowest income quartile (bottom 25% of Melbourne), and increases at the upper end. It even neatly fits into a scale – the higher your income, the more likely you are to have moved into Northcote over any of these time periods.
For Maribyrnong’s incomes, it’s not quite as clear over a 5 year time scale, but over 10 years, it’s quite strong.
Other good indications of a gentrified area are large increases in professional occupations, people with degree level qualifications, and in some cases, relative decreases in number of people from a non-English speaking background.
So these trends are not new (we’re already nearly 5 years on from the last Census), and often by the time the public becomes aware of gentrification, it’s pretty well advanced. So don’t use this information to plan your next big investment – that horse has already bolted!
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Nice article on the changes in our local suburbs. It is good to see this type of information published.
The other interesting indicator of gentrification I noted from analysing the .id community profiles is with regard to religion. Almost all gentrifying areas have a significant increase in people with ‘No Religion’. Hmmmm, high incomes, high levels of education and no religion – does this mean that gentrifiers are more materialially oriented and less spiritual?
Ivan – perhaps the link here is that higher education leads to a more critical view of religion and religious texts, and whether there is any true relevance for formal religion in our lives.
Very interesting article – well written for the statistically challenged (me!).
I’m planning to track the gentrification of Sunshine, Melbourne (yes, I am serious) so your tips re household income stats are much appreciated.
Cheers!
Shell
Hi Shell,
Sunshine is a great example. In 2006, it was only just starting to show the signs of gentrification – small influx of young adults and increase at both ends of the income scale. It will be really interesting to see what happens by 2011, as it’s in a prime position on the railway line and has had lots of development. As a very low socio-economic area there is lots of room to move up the income scale.
Keep an eye on the City of Brimbank profile, which include Sunshine, particularly when we update it after 2011.
http://www.id.com.au/profile/brimbank