Exploring Residents' Perceptions of Neighborhood Development and Revitalization for Active Living Opportunities

Introduction Community fears of gentrification have created concerns about building active living infrastructure in neighborhoods with low-income populations. However, little empirical research exists re-lated to these concerns. This work describes characteristics of res-idents who reported 1) concerns about increased cost of living caused by neighborhood development and 2) support for infra -structural improvements even if the changes lead to a higher cost of living. Methods Data on concerns about or support for transportation-related and land use-related improvements and sociodemographic character-istics were obtained from the 2018 SummerStyles survey, an on-line panel survey conducted on a nationwide sample of US adults (n = 3,782). Descriptive statistics characterized the sample, and chi 2 tests examined associations among variables. Results Overall, 19.1% of study respondents agreed that development had caused concerns about higher cost of living. Approximately half (50.7%) supported neighborhood changes for active living oppor-tunities even if they lead to higher costs of living. Prevalences of both concern and support were higher among respondents who were younger and who had higher levels of education than their counterparts. Support did not differ between racial or ethnic groups, but concern was reported more often by Hispanic/Latino (28.9%) and other non-Hispanic (including multiracial) respond-ents (25.5%) than by non-Hispanic White respondents (15.6%). Respondents who reported concerns were more likely to express support (65.3%) than respondents who did not report concerns (47.3%). Conclusion The study showed that that low-income, racial, or ethnic minority populations support environmental changes to improve active liv-ing despite cost of living concerns associated with community revitalization.