REVITALIZATION OF INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOODS

Recent investigations of inner-city areas have indicated that a number of neighborhoods and commercial areas are attracting affluent middle-class migrants and businesses. The phenomenon has been called "gentrification " and "neighborhood revitalization. " This process is regarded as an example of the human ecological concept of invasion-succession. That concept, it is argued, has been employed too narrowly in the study of urban change, and the current alterations in land use patterns open up the possibilities of broadening its application. The concept is reassessed in light of recent research and is examined as a particularly good foundation for research on changing land use patterns. Enough data have now been generated to document adequately that a number of old inner-city neighborhoods are undergoing massive revitalization (see especially Clay, 1977; James, 1977; and Lipton, 1977). The predictions that old inner cities would become the almost exclusive residence of ethnic minorities, the poor, and the elderly are no longer valid. A number of once-blighted inner-city areas are now attracting white and black affluent members o