REPORT EXAMINES HOUSING, RACE AND INCOME CHANGES IN THE RICHMOND METROPOLITAN AREA CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 25 -- Most theories say that cities decline as their housing ages. Evidence from Richmond indicates either that these theories are mistaken or Richmond is a strange case, according to urban researchers at the University of Virginia. In the City of Richmond, most neighborhoods with the oldest housing increased in median family income relative to the region's income between 1980 and 1990, according to urban planning professors William Lucy and David Phillips in a 51-page report on the city and surrounding counties. "In contrast, most of the neighborhoods with the oldest housing in Henrico and Chesterfield Counties declined in relative family income," Lucy and Phillips said. "The difference was that the oldest neighborhoods in Richmond were planned and their housing was built before World War II, while the oldest neighborhoods in Henrico and Chesterfield were planned and their housing was built after World War II." "We suspect that both the housing aesthetics and the neighborhood qualities of being walkable to many activities and a short drive or bus ride from many others make the old Richmond neighborhoods more attractive to many people than the middle-aged suburban neighborhoods," they said. "Even though most of the City of Richmond is declining in relative income," they observed, "in 13 of its 24 census tracts where 40 percent or more of the housing was built before 1940, relative family income went up between 1980 and 1990." "Furthermore, in 46 percent of those old neighborhoods, relative income went up by more than 10 percent in that 10-year period," they added. "The revival of Richmond's oldest neighborhoods is all the more remarkable since most people seem to think suburbs are safer and have better schools." "The most threatened neighborhoods appear to be ones with primarily middle-aged housing," Lucy and Phillips emphasized. "In Henrico the decline of middle aged neighborhoods is particularly apparent," they said. "Countywide, income ratios increased in 30 percent of Henrico's census tracts. But in its 20 middle aged census tracts, only three (15 percent) increased in median family income ratios. It was the new suburbs with mainly 1980s housing where income ratios most often increased." Lucy and Phillips said they believe that many aging suburban neighborhoods are poor candidates for sufficient reinvestment in housing and for attracting people of the same income after residents move out. If middle-income homebuyers are looking for a more rural setting, with larger yards and newer housing, they won't find it in the aging suburbs. If middle income homebuyers are looking for walkable neighborhoods, interesting architecture, and the convenience of short driving distances and mass transit options, they won't find that in most aging suburbs either." "The result is that most aging suburbs are caught in the middle," they said. "To be stable, most aging suburbs either need to become denser and more like cities, or they need to become less dense and more rural exurban. Neither scenario is as likely as a path of steady decline." Lucy and Phillips said that neighborhood racial change also deviated from some expectations while being consistent with others. "The major surprise was that between 1980 and 1990 the percentage African-Americans constituted of total population actually decreased in about one-third of the Richmond region's census tracts," they said. "The decline in African-American population shares was particularly apparent in the oldest neighborhoods, where it decreased in 13 out of 24 of Richmond's oldest neighborhoods." "Where the African-American population share increased by more than 5 percent, however, income ratios decreased in eight of 10 instances," they said. "That decline probably occurred because the median income for African-American families is so much lower than for white families." Lucy and Phillips reported in previous research that 45 percent of Henrico's 49 census tracts and 25 percent of Chesterfield's 40 census tracts lost population between 1980 and 1990. They attributed most of these declines to families aging and getting smaller, plus some family size declines occurring through new smaller families moving in after other families left. They suggested that little housing was being lost to abandonment in Henrico or Chesterfield. Lucy and Phillips also had reported previously that median family income declined in 71 percent of Henrico's and 63 percent of Chesterfield's census tracts relative to the region's median income between 1980 and 1990. In addition, a majority of census tracts in high, middle, moderate and low-income neighborhoods in Henrico and Chesterfield had declined in income. "It now is apparent," they said, "that the middle-aged housing neighborhoods are most vulnerable to decline in Henrico and Chesterfield. In contrast, one-half of the census tracts with high concentrations of housing built in the 1980s went up in income ratios." "If these trends continued in the 1990s, then we would expect to see more middle and upper income people gravitating to old neighborhoods in Richmond and to exurban rural areas in Henrico, Chesterfield, and outlying counties," Lucy and Phillips said. "The middle aged suburbs, and the middle-aged parts of the City of Richmond, probably have continued to decline since 1990." Lucy and Phillips defined middle-aged census tracts as those having 5 to 40 percent of their housing constructed before 1940. When some housing was built before 1940 in census tracts, most of their housing that existed in 1990 usually was built in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Therefore, by 1990, most of their housing was 25 to 45 years old and in need of substantial reinvestment. The average size of census tracts in Richmond was less than 3,000 persons in 1990. In Henrico the average size was more than 4,000 residents in 1990, and in Chesterfield it was more than 5,000 residents. The findings about housing, race and income change are described in a 51-page report, which includes 12 pages of tables and 23 pages of maps, most of them at census tract scale. ### April 24, 1996 For interviews or additional information William Lucy may be reached at (804) 924-4779. 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