There is a saying about newspapers

Tom Toles on Gentrification, Buffalo News, 1998.

that they publish the first draft of history. Maybe newspapers also publish the first draft of sociology.

Today's article in the Post, "Shifting Migration Patterns Alter Portrait of Pr. George's," about demographic change in Prince George's County, Maryland, is merely but one example of invasion-succession theory from the human ecology school of the field of sociology. I wrote about another example, also based on a Post story, last year in this blog entry: It appears as if I am becoming a sociologist..."

Last year, I had a conversation with a Post reporter and said that when some of her colleagues go off to mid-career fellowships at universities for a year of study that they ought to take some courses in sociology...

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Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, 397-408 (1980)
Revitalization of Inner-City Neighborhoods: An Ecological Approach
James R. Hudson , Pennsylvania State University Capitol Campus

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.
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As people make more money, they move into bigger places and/or better locations. Over the last 100 years of urban history that has tended to mean that people move farther away from the center of the core of a metropolitan region. In DC, first that meant moving from the core of the city to outer neighborhoods still in the city, say up 14th or 16th Streets. Later that meant out of the city--to today's inner ring suburbs. Today that means further out still.

At the same time, there is a renewed interest and demand for urban living, which means that there is a counter trend of people moving inward. Sometimes that is a more micro trend, impacting but a few desireable neighborhoods--for example, even Detroit has some inner city neighborhoods experiencing population growth, especially downtown, but still the city has 50+ square miles that are completely empty. On the other hand, overall, Washington, DC is experiencing inward migration in most neighborhoods. This population tends to be white, hispanic, and other non-African American immigrants. Meanwhile, as today's Post story points out, African-Americans continue to move farther out from the center city.

Also see this blog entry, Commerz in the 'hood... (aka "Commerce as the engine of urbanism"), for a discussion of this broad issue, based on yet another Post article from last year. And this blog entry links to a lot of stuff I've written about "gentrification": Time passages.

And as many inner ring suburbs have been abandoned so to speak for places further out, there is a revitalization movement focused on the "unique" needs of the inner ring suburbs to stabilize and improve. See "Ten Principles of Revitalizing Inner-Ring Suburbs."

Note: these aren't unique needs, merely locational differences. The issues of revitalization aren't much different, except to a matter of degree, whether you are in the inner city, inner ring suburbs, or rural communities. It all comes down to population, demand, employment possibilities, household income, and the ability to maintain a position in an ever globalizing economy where for the most part manufacturing is not performed in the United States, with an exception for the "extraction" industries and other resource intensive industrial sectors, but with capital (technology) increasingly reducing the demand for workers.