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espective metropolitan areas, this activity represented only 1.6 percent of all conventional homepurchase activity in these metropolitan areas. 103. National Studies Conflict on ScaleResearch on gentrification conducted during the 1970s and 1980s differed in the conclusionsdrawn about the scope of gentrification and displacement that was occurring during that period,based perhaps on the definition of gentrification used. A comprehensive look at gentrification in themid-‘70s found that renovation affected only 0.5 percent of the central city housing stock, 11 and thatonly 100 neighborhoods in the top 30 largest cities experienced any revitalization. 12 This workmeasured the physical dimensions of gentrification and explored rehabilitation efforts as a proxy forgentrification, in much the same way that Wyly and Hammel more recently used home loansextended to higher-income borrowers in lower-income communities.Other studies in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s measured a social dimension, displacement, asa proxy for gentrification, and found much larger effects. One national study estimated that between1.7 and 2.4 million people were displaced by private redevelopment in 1979, consisting primarily oftenants, the poor and female-headed families. 13 Another study estimated that between 10,000 and40,000 households were displaced annually by gentrification in New York City in the late 1970s. 14Yet another study of nine revitalizing neighborhoods in five cities found that 23 percent of tenantshad been displaced over a two-year period. 15 These competing conclusions, varying definitions ofdisplacement, and differing definitional frameworks from the ‘70s and ‘80s help us better understandthe complexity of gentrification, but do little to answer the question of scale now. While it is hard tomeasure the overall scale of gentrification, it is clear that the impacts on the affected neighborhoodsand cities can be quite substantial in both positive and negative ways.B. What Are the Causes of Gentrification?Academic literature features a long-running debate about whether gentrification is causedprimarily by social/cultural factors such as changing family structures, by economic factors such asjob/housing imbalances, or by some combination of both. The most recent research attempts tosynthesize these two competing arguments, though there is no definitive resolution to this dispute.One such effort found empirical support for both demand-side and supply-side explanations. 16 Most10 Wyly, Elvin K. and Daniel J. Hammel, “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and theResurgence of Gentrification,” Housing Policy Debate, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 733,734.11 Berry, Brian J. L., “Islands of Renewal in Seas of Decay,” in The New Urban Reality, Paul E. Peterson, ed.Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1985, p. 73, citing Clay.12 Ibid., p. 73, citing National Urban Coalition.13 Residential Displacement, An Update (Washington, D.C.: Department of Housing and Urban Development,Office of Policy Development and Research, 1981) as reported in Ley, Dave, The New Middle Class and theRemaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 65-66.14 Marcuse, Peter, pp. 216-17.15 Shill, Michael and Richard Nathan, Revitalizing America’s Cities: Neighborhood Reinvestment andDisplacement. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983, as reported in Ley, p. 66.16 London, Bruce, Barrett Lee and S. Gregory Lipton, “The Determinants of Gentrification in the United States,A City Level Analysis,” Urban Affairs Quarterly, 1986, Vol. 21, No. 3. See also Loretta Lees, “Rethinking9