Neighborhood Change after Investment in Light-rail Transit (LRT)

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Recent decades saw renewed interest in alternatives to automobiles from both citizens and policymakers alike, with new investments in light-rail and other transit following as a result. While a growing literature outlines housing appreciation that investments may exogenously induce, no study has yet identified if projects impact the demographic composition of households in nearby neighborhoods. This research takes Seattle’s LightLinkRail as a case study with which to describe the trajectories of newly transit-rich neighborhoods and test if the light-rail system’s construction altered demographic trends. Using difference-in-difference analysis, models of pre- and post-treatment rates of change suggest a negative treatment effect for the population of black residents after the transit line opened. However, the only notable factor for trends in the proportion of white residents was time (i.e. all sample cases saw upticks in their trend relative to their pre-treatment levels).