Gentrification and Racial Distrust in Communities: Evidence from 911 Calls

Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan (), Sharique Hasan () and Anuj Kumar ()
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Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan: Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Sharique Hasan: Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, Durham, North Carolina 27708
Anuj Kumar: University of Florida, Warrington College of Business, Gainesville, Florida 32611

Management Science, 2025, vol. 71, issue 1, 708-730

Abstract: The prevalence of racial bias in policing has long concerned social scientists and policymakers. This article studies a predecessor mechanism that constitutes an important source of policing bias in American society: calls by individuals to the police to investigate “suspicious” behaviors, often involving neighbors. We construct a novel data set of more than 39 million 911 calls across 14 U.S. cities from 2011 to 2020. These data, obtained through the digitization initiatives of local governments, provide us with a unique opportunity to study neighborhood-level trust and social cohesion and demonstrate how changes to a neighborhood’s composition lead to systematic increases in the prevalence of “unfounded” suspicion calls to the police. Across a range of specifications, the proportion of unfounded suspicion calls increases as more non-Black residents move into neighborhoods with historically high levels of Black residents. This relationship is exacerbated in gentrifying neighborhoods and those with public spaces that enable more contact between community members. However, we also find some evidence that Black leadership and public support of Black citizens in communities mitigate the association between non-Black residents and the proportion of unfounded 911 calls. We discuss our results and implications for future research and policy.

Keywords: race; social mistrust; 911 calls; gentrification; social media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:71:y:2025:i:1:p:708-730

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