Can urban renewal policies reverse neighborhood ethnic dynamics?[Urban renewal after the Berlin Wall: a place-based policy evaluation]

This article assesses the impact on neighborhood population dynamics of a major urban renewal policy that was implemented in Catalonia (Spain) between 2004 and 2010. The policy involved sizeable investments in the public spaces and facilities of some of the most deprived neighborhoods in the region. Besides seeking to improve the quality of life in the treated neighborhoods, one of the policy’s goals was to attract natives and high income individuals and, as a consequence, reduce the concentration of poverty and immigration. The control group comprises rejected projects and projects accepted toward the end of the programs which, due to a fall in public tax revenues, were never executed. The results indicate that the urban renewal projects had little (if any) effect on population dynamics, suggesting that substantial investment in public spaces and facilities in deprived neighborhoods is insufficient to attract natives and/or high-income households. The interventions made in Barcelona’s historic districts, however, seem to constitute an exception as, here, the policy seems to have accelerated gentrification in the deprived neighborhoods of central Barcelona.