ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors focus on those census tracts with a decade of construction specialization of 1.5 or greater. They describe the decade of construction specialization of 2.5 or greater. Perhaps the combination of extolling pre-auto virtues with growing stress from auto-dominated suburban land development patterns led to shifts in consumer preferences for housing and neighbourhoods. Older neighbourhoods should tend to have lower relative incomes than newer neighbourhoods. An extensive literature about dynamics of neighbourhood change exists in sociology, economics, geography, policy analysis, and planning. The authors describe the relative income status of these census tracts in 1970 and 1980. The tract boundaries throughout are ones the census used in 2000. By using all census tracts, comparisons also can be made between neighbourhood trends in central cities and outside central cities. For post-1940 construction, data for each decade are available.
