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Neighborhoods, Race, and the Twenty-first-century Housing Appraisal Industry
Abstract
The history of the U.S. housing market is bound up in systemic, explicit racism. However, little research has investigated whether racial inequality also persists in the contemporary appraisal industry and, if present, how it happens. The present article addresses this gap by centering the appraisal industry as a key housing market player in the reproduction of racial inequality. Using a census of all single-family tax-appraised homes in Harris County (Houston), Texas, the authors examine the influence of neighborhood racial composition on home values independent of home characteristics and quality; neighborhood housing stock, socioeconomic status, and amenities; and consumer housing demand. Noting that substantial neighborhood racial inequality in home values persists even when these variables are accounted for, the authors then use ethnographic and interview data to investigate the appraisal processes that enable this inequality to continue. The findings suggest that variation in appraisal methods coupled with appraisers’ racialized perceptions of neighborhoods perpetuates neighborhood racial disparities in home value. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research and policy interventions aimed at standardizing the appraisal process.
... Specifically, we examine whether a potential buyer's initial property appraisal is affected by the seller's race. This is important, as a buyer's initial appraisal is indicative of their willingness-to-pay, which in turn reverberates on transaction prices (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018). 1 With roughly a third of global private wealth being tied up to real estate (Syz, 2008), investigating the prevalence of discriminatory appraisals by buyers in the housing market is hence crucial. ...
... Last, our study complements the literature on the explanatory factors of racial inequalities in the housing market. Faber and Ellen (2016) conclude that these inequalities can be partly explained by differences in income, education and types of property, while others focused on the role of institutional actors, such as banks (Kopkin, 2018;Bhutta and Hizmo, 2021;Park, 2021;Bartlett et al., 2022) or private appraisal companies (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018). Our paper suggests that another explanation can be found in differences in buyers' appraisals based on the seller's origin. ...
... Real-estate characteristics that are observed by the buyer but not by the researcher may be correlated with race: one example is geographic segregation, whereby individuals of a given race are more likely to be over-or under-represented in certain locations. Previous research has shown that the racial composition of an area significantly affects property appraisals (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018). Thus, even if the researcher attempts to include variables capturing the objective quality of the property, it would be impossible to determine whether a buyer penalised a seller solely on the basis of race. ...
Participants to an online study in Luxembourg are presented with fictitious real-estate advertisements and tasked to make an offer for each of them. A random subset is also shown sellers’ names that are strongly framed to signal their origins. Our randomised procedure allows us to conclude that, keeping everything else constant, a seller with a sub-Saharan African surname is systematically offered lower prices. Our most conservative estimates suggest that the average racial appraisal penalty is equal to roughly EUR 20,000. This figure is highly heterogeneous and can amount up to around EUR 58,000. Last, we provide evidence suggesting that this appraisal bias may very well pass through onto the final sales price and that it may be due to statistical discrimination.
... When finding comparable predecessors, a qualitative simulation is done to understand a player's potential development, aligning it with another player's development. "Comparables" or "comps" are used in various contexts, such as using comparables to price housing (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018) and using similar books to select book manuscripts for publication (Fürst, 2017(Fürst, , 2018. However, comparables are seldom standardized and can be strategically developed and used to legitimize an uncertain choice of personal interest to the evaluator. ...
... However, comparables are seldom standardized and can be strategically developed and used to legitimize an uncertain choice of personal interest to the evaluator. Hence, selecting and using comparables are rarely neutral and can reinforce societal inequalities (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018). Talent then becomes an issue of what is used as a source for comparison and how this comparison is carried out in practice. ...
This article proposes a reassessment of the concept of talent and offers tools for a conceptual and methodological shift in the study of talent identification in sports. Drawing on American pragmatism, specifically the pragmatic maxim, the article aims to clarify the concept of talent in talent identification that makes an athlete open for selection. The article organizes, presents, and discusses existing research on talent identification and highlights the need for a conceptual reevaluation. Instead of solely focusing on talent identification, the article suggests studying player qualifications through explicit and implicit tests, where the label "talent" is one outcome among several. The relevance of measurement, attachment, and judgment in this context of valuation is discussed. The article underscores the importance of considering the involved agents and the situational and historical context of these qualifications.
... Figure 3 uses descriptive statistics (in the same manner as Fig. 2) to show these disparities for damages, with the per capita damages for a Latina/x/o person from climate change-attributed flooding estimated at~$1,035. Although this estimate is only narrowly higher than that for whites ($828), it should be noted that home values are higher in white neighborhoods, and therefore this disparity per unit of home value is greater [21][22][23] . ...
... While economic models exist that could describe the damage as a function of market value such as hedonic property value modeling for costbenefit analyses relating to environmental impacts 48 , our use of depth-damage functions is favored because of the closer focus on the replacement value of estimated damages. Second, there are large disparities in market value based on the racial composition of neighborhoods 21,22 meaning that a depth-damage function for market value could undercount damages in minority and/or low-income neighborhoods. Still, future research might consider other approaches such as hedonic models that take into account market value because the present approach with replacement value does not measure the land value of the parcel or how the land value of the parcel may be affected by damages to the buildings in the parcel. ...
Climate change is already increasing the severity of extreme weather events such as with rainfall during hurricanes. But little research to date investigates if, and to what extent, there are social inequalities in climate change-attributed extreme weather event impacts. Here, we use climate change attribution science paired with hydrological flood models to estimate climate change-attributed flood depths and damages during Hurricane Harvey in Harris County, Texas. Using detailed land-parcel and census tract socio-economic data, we then describe the socio-spatial characteristics associated with these climate change-induced impacts. We show that 30 to 50% of the flooded properties would not have flooded without climate change. Climate change-attributed impacts were particularly felt in Latina/x/o neighborhoods, and especially so in Latina/x/o neighborhoods that were low-income and among those located outside of FEMA’s 100-year floodplain. Our focus is thus on climate justice challenges that not only concern future climate change-induced risks, but are already affecting vulnerable populations disproportionately now.
... We often think of class defining where a person can afford to live, thus limiting higher cost areas to higherincome people, but class has never been the only restricting feature defining the distribution of people across housing in the urban landscape. White government officials, real estate agents, developers, appraisers, and residents developed and implemented policies and tools of racial restriction and threats of physical violence and property damage to keep Asian, Black, and Latinx residents segregated from Whites, often restricting them to specific areas such as the Black Belt in Chicago or Chinatown in San Francisco (Brooks 2009;Drake and Cayton 1970;Du Bois 1899;Howell and Korver-Glenn 2018;Pietila 2010;Rothstein 2017). Cities like Baltimore implemented racial restrictive zoning between 1910 and 1917 to limit where Black residents could live (Pietila 2010;D. ...
... While the racist policies and practices enforcing racial segregation became illegal between the 1960s and 1980s, racial segregation persisted through the actions of real estate agents and appraisers, white movers' residential preferences, banks' decisions on mortgage lending, and White movers fleeing inner-city areas as non-White populations increased and employers moved out (Bobo and Zubrinsky 1996;Charles 2006;Howell and Korver-Glenn 2018;Taylor 2019;Wilson 1987). Thus, as the Asian, Black, and Latinx middle-and upper-classes gained access to mortgage lending and (theoretical) access to White neighborhoods, racial segregation persisted through new mechanisms. ...
Academics largely define gentrification based on changes in the class demographics of neighborhood residents from predominately low-income to middle-class. This ignores that gentrification always occurs in spaces defined by both class and race. In this article, I use the lens of racial capitalism to theorize gentrification as a racialized, profit-accumulating process, integrating the perspective that spaces are always racialized to class-centered theories. Using the prior literature on gentrification in the United States, I demonstrate how the concepts of value, valuation, and devaluation from racial capitalism explain where and how gentrification unfolds. Exposure to gentrification varies depending on a neighborhood’s racial composition and the gentrification stakeholders involved, which contributes to racial differences in the scale and pace of change and the implications of those changes for the processes of displacement. Revising our understanding of gentrification to address the racialization of space helps resolve seemingly contradictory findings across qualitative and quantitative studies.
... The RTV accomplishes this because, as Abrams (1955) noted, its logic is circular. If appraisers are a priori convinced that Black presence reflects negatively on home values-or if mass appraisal technology has this assumption built into its model by proxy-they will incorporate that principle into their home appraisals, rendering it true (see Bonds, 2019;Freund, 2007;Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018;Imbroscio, 2021;Zaimi, 2020). ...
An outpouring of critical sub/urban scholarship in recent years has explored the historical and ongoing linkages between race, real estate, and space in the United States. Much of this literature has positioned residential segregation as crucial for structuring the geographies of capital accumulation , highlighting how segregation delimits places for extraction and dispossession. In this essay, I build from the foundations this literature lays by bringing together Charles Abrams' concept of "the racist theory of value" (RTV) and David Harvey's notion of "anti-value" to illuminate the centrality of racialized devaluation in the accumulation process in the US. Specifically, I contend that the RTV, in its role in entrenching residential segregation and collapsing race and value together in space, has helped to demarcate and contain the devaluation that capitalism requires in Black residential spaces. As a key innovation for real estate capital to manage the geographies of (anti-)value, the RTV ensures that the economic losses generated in the accumulation process are felt most acutely in Black communities. In this way, the RTV constitutes a form of planned spatial obsolescence wherein the restricted movement of Black people is converted into the controlled movement of devaluation.
... Contemporary practices such as exclusionary zoning laws reinforce and contribute the unequal neighborhood outcomes, including the perpetuation of race and social class segregation. Furthermore, continued discrimination in housing (National Fair Housing Alliance, 2018) and lending, as well as more recently documented bias in appraisals (Howell & Korver-Glenn, 2018) serve to limit housing options for minorities and constrain wealth generation. ...
Climate change and its related impacts are fast becoming the dominant force in the housing market. The fundamental role that housing plays in people's lives makes these effects particularly pernicious, often impacting employment, school attendance, undermining physical and mental health, disrupting social networks, and contributing to food insecurity. The complexity of addressing these issues is compounded by the cyclical and reciprocal relationships among these factors, with housing inequalities frequently lying at the core and climate change impacts percolating throughout. I introduce the framework of acute, secondary, and pre‐emptive/reactive impacts to help understand these mechanisms. To understand and contextualize these connections, I provide a brief overview racial segregation in the United States and related inequalities that place some individuals, groups, and communities at greater risk. Other key sources of housing instability in the United States that are often closely related to housing segregation include lack of affordable housing, growing income inequality, housing discrimination, evictions, and foreclosures, all of which contribute to unequal housing outcomes. These factors are explored using the temporal framework to discuss their connection to climate change, which is in and of itself a major force of housing instability.
... The demographic shift, driven by deindustrialization and the migration of the working-age population, has resulted in a predominance of vulnerable groups, including the elderly, the economically disadvantaged, and the less educated [11]. This shift has significantly dulled community vitality, adding complexity to the socio-economic landscape of these areas [12]. ...
Post-industrial neighborhoods are valued for their historical and cultural significance but often contend with challenges such as physical deterioration, social instability, and cultural decay, which diminish residents’ satisfaction. Leveraging urban renewal as a catalyst, it is essential to boost residents’ satisfaction by enhancing the environmental quality of these areas. This study, drawing on data from Shenyang, China, utilizes the combined strengths of gradient boosting decision trees (GBDTs) and asymmetric impact-performance analysis (AIPA) to systematically identify and prioritize the built-environment attributes that significantly enhance residents’ satisfaction. Our analysis identifies twelve key attributes, strategically prioritized based on their asymmetric impacts on satisfaction and current performance levels. Heritage maintenance, property management, activities, and heritage publicity are marked as requiring immediate improvement, with heritage maintenance identified as the most urgent. Other attributes are categorized based on their potential to enhance satisfaction or their lack of immediate improvement needs, enabling targeted and effective urban revitalization strategies. This research equips urban planners and policymakers with critical insights, supporting informed decisions that markedly improve the quality of life in these distinctive urban settings.
... In the case of real estate estimate algorithms and iBuyer programs, these questions shift our focus to the underlying logics of the housing market that are necessarily encoded into the algorithms but that also determine how the algorithms' performance will be perceived and evaluated. Thus, we can explore how the perception of these systems as intelligent is contingent upon the logics of deregulated, capitalist housing markets, the social and cultural values of homeownership, and ongoing histories of racial descrimination in housing (Bonds, 2019;Korver-Glenn, 2018;Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018;Rugh and Massey, 2010), as well as the work and practices of homeowners, appraisers, real estate agents, developers, mortgage brokers, and others involved in (re)producing the housing market (Benites-Gamirazio 2020; Besbris, 2016). ...
This chapter reconsiders the way scholars locate ‘intelligence’ in particular objects within the urban environment, from various forms of robotics to integrated urban sensing networks and purportedly autonomous algorithms. Scholars tend to highlight and interrogate the specific capacities and functions of a given object or system, often explicitly or implicitly equating these capacities with ‘intelligence,’ thus allowing for categorizations of different kinds of digital agents based on their distinct dis/embodiments and/or autonomy. This chapter contrasts this approach through a relational theory in which intelligence is not located in a given subject or object but is rather an emergent property of their interactions in particular contexts. This chapter thus engages the recent social science literature on AI in relation to the broader philosophy on intelligence to ask not only what autonomy means in the context of AI but how intelligence is a contingent concept made real through perceptions and encounters. We apply this theoretical take to the operations of real estate estimate algorithms and iBuyer programs and ask how perceptions of intelligence emerge through situated encounters and come to influence the ways differentially situated individuals interact with and make use of purported AI systems.
... When white residents of the USA were asked to assign value to a home, they thought the home was worth less if an image of a Black (relative to white) family appeared in front of the home, even though all other factors were the same 146 . The same patterns emerge in actual housing data 152 . Schools in predominantly Black neighbourhoods are undervalued, receiving less funding per student than schools in predominantly white neighbourhoods 153 . ...
Historically, the field of psychology has focused on racial biases at an individual level, considering the effects of various stimuli on individual racial attitudes and biases. This approach has provided valuable information, but not enough focus has been placed on the systemic nature of racial biases. In this Review, we examine the bidirectional relation between individual-level racial biases and broader societal systems through a systemic lens. We argue that systemic factors operating across levels - from the interpersonal to the cultural - contribute to the production and reinforcement of racial biases in children and adults. We consider the effects of five systemic factors on racial biases in the USA: power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives and values, segregated communities, shared stereotypes and nonverbal messages. We discuss evidence that these factors shape individual-level racial biases, and that individual-level biases shape systems and institutions to reproduce systemic racial biases and inequalities. We conclude with suggestions for interventions that could limit the effects of these influences and discuss future directions for the field.
... HMDA provides data on interest rates that could be used to understand the link between subprime lending and racial health disparities. Another potentially fruitful area of research might be discrimination in the home appraisal process [92,93]. Fourth, scholars must start going beyond redlining to understand how historical racism in housing impacts present-day health inequities. ...
Racial
residential segregation is considered a fundamental cause of racial health disparities, with housing discrimination as a critical driver of residential segregation. Despite this link, racial discrimination in housing is far less studied than segregation in the population health literature. As a result, we know little about how discrimination in housing is linked to health beyond its connection to segregation. Furthermore, we need to understand how health impacts differ across different types of housing discrimination. This review aims to assess the state of the population health literature on the conceptualization, measurement, and health implications of housing discrimination. We used PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews and presented the data on 32 articles that met our inclusion criteria published before January 1, 2022. Nearly half of the articles do not define housing discrimination explicitly. Additionally, there is considerable variation in how housing discrimination is operationalized across studies. Compared to studies using administrative data for housing discrimination exposures, studies using survey data were more likely to report a detrimental association with health outcomes. Synthesizing and comparing the results of these studies helps bridge methodological approaches to this research. Our review helps inform the debate on how racism impacts population health. Given the changing nature of racial discrimination over time and place, we discuss how population health researchers can approach studying various forms of housing discrimination.
... For instance, the extra-school resources available to Black and Latinx youth are quantitatively and qualitatively different because they are more likely to live in neighborhoods characterized by families struggling to make ends meet, less access to dominant US culture (e.g., middle/upper class, White), and tense relations with police (Korver-Glenn, 2018; Orfield et al., 2014;Stewart et al., 2015). Schools are also racially and socioeconomically segregated through parents' selection of, or relegation to, certain neighborhoods and schools (Fiel, 2015;Howell & Korver-Glenn, 2018;Korver-Glenn, 2018). ...
Schools’ overt or explicit practices are a dominant lens through which education researchers and policymakers attempt to understand how schools are racially inequitable. Yet, Lewis and Diamond argue that contemporary racial inequalities are largely sustained through implicit factors, like institutional practices and structural inequalities. Ray’s framework on racialized organizations similarly outlines how our racialized sociopolitical structure becomes embedded in organizations, legitimating and perpetuating the racialized hierarchy. We apply illustrative cluster analysis techniques to rich data on schools, teachers, and students from the nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to find that structural inequities (e.g., student body, sector, average achievement) appear to be most salient in delineating the racialization of US high schools, whereas the characteristics of schools and teachers that are typically emphasized for closing racial inequities in educational outcomes (e.g., teacher qualifications, courses offered, stratification practices) are not salient differentiators across schools.
... The stickiness of property norms we describe above means that the racialization of the housing market continues even without official state involvement. For example, despite the capitalist determination to enforce the ruse that all property has an objectively ascertainable fair-market valuation, appraisals represent a site where unconscious and conscious bias can express the ideology of racism in the language of financial capital (Howell and Korver-Glenn 2018). Accounts suggest that, where evidence of an owner's racial minority status is removed, the presumption of whiteness applies to property, causing appraisals to rise (Mock 2021). ...
... High population density may influence both an individual's exposure to conspicuous consumption (higher visibility) and her access to a more dynamic labor market, which in turn may reduce the need for social insurance. Furthermore, the racial composition of the neighborhood influences home values in the USA (Howell and Korver-Glenn, 2018), thus residing in a predominantly white area may increase individual wealth at the same time as it increases welfare generosity toward the members of one's racial group. Finally, I control for median home value as a proxy for overall local wealth. ...
Consumer behavior and sociological research have recognized early on the negative externalities of exposure to conspicuous consumption: anxiety, debt and wasteful consumption. This article contributes to political economy by incorporating the costs of exposure to wealth-signaling consumption into the materialist self-interest model of social policy preferences. The argument is that exposure to conspicuous consumption reduces support for social spending and increases demand for lower income taxes. Tax cuts impact purchasing power directly, allowing individuals to keep up with consumption standards and to avoid looking poor by comparison. Two USA-based analyses using fine-grained data on consumption and individual attitudes at the zip code and county level support the argument. Importantly, less-affluent citizens are more likely to prioritize cuts to social spending over tax increases, at higher levels of conspicuous consumption. Additional analyses rule out alternative explanations like upward mobility prospects, local wealth effects and partisan context.
... Ethnicity-based housing inequality has been extensively studied in Europe and North America (DeSilva & Elmelech, 2012;Phillips & Harrison, 2010). In the U.S., Black people remain less likely to own homes and more likely to live in older, crowded, and structurally inadequate housing than White people (Bianchi et al., 1982;Howell & Korver-Glenn, 2018;De La Cruz-Viesca et al., 2018). Similarly, studies reveal housing inequality in China based on socio-economic profile and Hukou system (Chen, 2019;Huang & Jiang, 2009;Wang & Murie, 2000). ...
Urban housing inequality is a major academic and policy concern in Pakistan, but empirical investigations and, in turn, evidence-based policy interventions are limited. This study examines the nature of housing inequalities and their determinants focusing on ethnolinguistic groups using a nationally representative household survey, where housing inequality is measured using two indicators: housing space usage (room per capita) and access to utilities (an index based on access to piped water, sewerage, cooking gas, and electricity). Results show that housing inequality by ethnicity is very high, and ethnic belonging, along with socioeconomic factors, significantly influences space consumption and access to utilities. Intersectionality between ethnicity, income, and education plays a crucial role in housing inequality. Balochi, Sindhi, and Siraiki communities have a lower potential for achieving adequate housing than other communities. To reduce housing inequalities, identified disadvantaged communities along with the economic poor should be targeted through housing policies and programmes.
Are the adverse consequences of gentrification distributed more along racial or class lines? To answer this question, scholars must consider when and where racially dominant groups are affected by gentrification in addition to minoritized groups. Therefore, this study centers White residents displaced from gentrifying U.S. neighborhoods as its analytic focus. Using restricted-access Panel Study of Income Dynamics data between 2001 and 2019, I find that White displacees shared many demographic characteristics with non-White displacees. White residents were also involuntarily displaced at a rate comparable to that of non-White residents, and both groups were equally likely to move into neighborhoods that were poorer than the ones from which they were displaced. Nevertheless, White displacees earned larger incomes and were displaced from richer neighborhoods. White displacees’ wealthier starting points made their downward mobility less dramatic, enabling them to continue living in better-off neighborhoods after displacement. The spatial and financial advantages of White displacees highlight how race and class can be interwoven to mitigate White residents’ experiences of displacement in ways that are largely unavailable to non-White residents. Findings support elements of both race- and class-based perspectives of gentrification but ultimately suggest that a blended, race-and-class perspective is useful when conceptualizing gentrification-induced displacement.
In the thirty years since Massey and Denton's American Apartheid , sociological scholarship on segregation has proliferated, calling attention to the ways in which the social geography of the United States both drives and is shaped by racial and economic inequality. More recent work has focused on the role that institutional actors play in the reproduction of residential segregation and its disparate impacts on communities of color. In this article, we describe different conceptualizations of segregation and how it has been used as a tool for exclusion and exploitation. We review literature on housing and institutional marginalization, highlighting the historical and contemporary mechanisms that perpetuate inequality and necessitate continued research on this topic. We conclude with a discussion of additional considerations and opportunities for future research.
Although rates of residential racial segregation and home prices are undoubtedly related, the temporal nature of the relationship has rarely been studied. Using fixed effects models in a cross-lagged framework, we examine how prior changes in segregation and home prices at the metro level predict changes in the other. Our findings suggest that increases in home prices predict increasing racial segregation years later, but increases in segregation fail to predict subsequent change in home values. Metros that experience a 1 standard deviation increase in home prices experience an associated 0.25 standard deviation increase in Black-White segregation 10 years later and a 0.18 standard deviation increase 20 years later. No relationship is observed for Hispanic-White segregation. We discuss implications for understanding the economic underpinnings of segregation. Findings also offer insight into future segregation trends and illuminate how changes in the housing market may drive demographic trends more broadly.
The burgeoning growth of racial capitalism work within urban studies (RCUS) has garnered considerable attention. In this critical commentary, we embark on an examination of existing scholarship to ascertain its theoretical relevance within this domain. Our inquiry reveals a predominant focus on the plight of individuals ensnared in the web of everyday racial capitalism. The existing body of work predominantly directs its gaze towards what we term ‘spaces of victimisation’, while largely neglecting those who derive advantages from this system. Transcending from the study of victimisation to the exploration of spaces characterised by benefit presents formidable challenges. We consider some of the challenges to making the leap from spaces of victimisation to spaces of benefit: the routineness of benefit, the scale(s) of benefit, and the remoteness of benefit. In sum, we suggest how the application of RCUS might confront these multifaceted challenges, offering a unique vantage point for critical analysis.
This study examines the relationships between commonly available socioeconomic and environmental determinants of real estate (crime, quality of schools, racial/ethnic diversity, and built environment) and real estate values in socially and politically recognized units in the three largest cities of the U.S.-New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Utilizing a variety of data sources used by potential real estate buyers, we conduct correlations, mapping, and multiple regression analyses to identify the degrees and strengths of associations between select determinants and real estate values at these politically recognized units. Results suggest that the cities exhibit similar patterns for crime-related characteristics and quality of schools. However, the characteristics such as population density, vacancy rates, and especially the ethnic/racial diversity of these recognized units demonstrate nuanced differences with real estate values across the three cities.
African American mothers are unjustly burdened by both residential evictions and psychological distress. We quantified associations between trajectories of neighborhood evictions over time and the odds of moderate and serious psychological distress (MPD and SPD, respectively) during pregnancy among African American women. We linked publicly available data on neighborhood eviction filing and judgment rates to preconception and during-pregnancy addresses from the Life-course Influences on Fetal Environments (LIFE) Study (2009-2011; n = 808). Multinomial logistic regression–estimated odds of MPD and SPD during pregnancy that were associated with eviction filing and judgment rate trajectories incorporating preconception and during-pregnancy addresses (each categorized as low, medium, or high, with two 9-category trajectory measures). Psychological distress was measured with the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) (K6 scores 5-12 = MPD, and K6 scores ≥13 = SPD). MPD was reported in 60% of the sample and SPD in 8%. In adjusted models, higher neighborhood eviction filing and judgment rates, as compared with low/low rates, during the preconception and pregnancy periods were associated with 2- to 4-fold higher odds of both MPD and SPD during pregnancy among African American women. In future studies, researchers should identify mechanisms of these findings to inform timely community-based interventions and effective policy solutions to ensure the basic human right to housing for all.
This article is part of a Special Collection on Mental Health.
Few researchers have considered how gentrification affects inequalities of housing wealth between Black and White neighborhoods. Drawing on the U.S. census and the American Community Survey, I test the hypothesis that home values rise more slowly in gentrifying neighborhoods that are majority Black compared to those that are majority White. I find that home values appreciate more quickly in gentrifying neighborhoods that are majority Black, particularly those that are experiencing significant change in their racial-ethnic composition. The findings further suggest that Black gentrifying neighborhoods experiencing racial transition—a large increase in the proportion of White residents and a large decrease in the proportion of Black residents—experience higher rates of home value appreciation than those not experiencing racial transition. I argue that gentrification reproduces the racial stratification of urban neighborhoods because large increases to housing wealth tend to be coupled with the arrival of the White middle-class.
In the present study, we propose a novel conceptualization of homeownership in the United States as a special commodity, whose consumption involves a two-stage process: homeownership entry wherein the ability to consume is pivotal, and homeownership retention wherein the outcome rests on economic security. Based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we test this conceptualization with consumption ability being proxied by income and economic security by liquid wealth. Three hypotheses are verified: (1) income predicts first-time renters’ chance of becoming homeowners but has weakened influence on homeownership retention; (2) liquid wealth constitutes the central determinant for first-time homeowners’ ability to avoid going back to renting; and (3) nonliquid wealth fails to exhibit a significant impact on either homeownership stage. By revealing the two separate stages of different homeownership dynamics, this study is the first to systematically explore the built-in contradiction of capitalist housing markets. Policy implications are also discussed.
In the present study, we propose a novel conceptualization of homeownership in the United States as a special commodity, whose consumption involves a two-stage process: homeownership entry wherein the ability to consume is pivotal, and homeownership retention wherein the outcome rests on economic security. Based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we test this conceptualization with consumption ability being proxied by income and economic security by liquid wealth. Three hypotheses are verified: (1) income predicts first-time renters’ chance of becoming homeowners but has weakened influence on homeownership retention; (2) liquid wealth constitutes the central determinant for first-time homeowners’ ability to avoid going back to renting; and (3) nonliquid wealth fails to exhibit a significant impact on either homeownership stage. By revealing the two separate stages of different homeownership dynamics, this study is the first to systematically explore the built-in contradiction of capitalist housing markets. Policy implications are also discussed.
Health professionals who care for children will find a thoughtful and hands-on resource to address racism and race-related issues in their practices in this essay collection. Leading experts from across disciplines frame the issues and provide practical information on prevention, intervention, and anticipatory guidance. Each chapter is grounded in the recommendations outlined in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health.” The AAP is committed to reducing the ongoing costs and burden of racism to children, the health care system, and society—this book is an important contribution to that effort and ongoing conversation. Available for purchase at https://www.aap.org/Untangling-the-Thread-of-Racism-A-Primer-for-Pediatric-Health-Professionals-Paperback
Unlike other housing courts, Chicago’s building court is characterized by leniency. The mostly low-income property owners who appear in building court often receive extensions to remedy building code violations or even dismissals of their violations. This article shows that, paradoxically, the consequences of these lenient outcomes are punitive for building court defendants, replicating the kinds of detrimental outcomes that harsher legal enforcement can produce. Building on conceptual apparatus from socio-legal studies, I identify two mechanisms—property markers and hassle of leniency—through which building court entrenches or even exacerbates housing precarity for low-income homeowners and small-time landlords. I argue that without additional support for low-income defendants, even well-intentioned leniency on the part of municipal officials and legal actors reinforces economic inequities in the housing market.
The ongoing explosion of interest in artificial intelligence is fueled in part by recently developed techniques in machine learning. Those techniques allow automated systems to process huge amounts of data, utilizing mathematical methods that depart from traditional statistical approaches, and resulting in impressive advancements in our ability to make predictions and uncover correlations across a host of interesting domains. But as is now widely discussed, the way that those systems arrive at their outputs is often opaque, even to the experts who design and deploy them. Is it morally problematic to make use of opaque automated methods when making high-stakes decisions, like whether to issue a loan to an applicant, or whether to approve a parole request? Many scholars answer in the affirmative. However, there is no widely accepted explanation for why transparent systems are morally preferable to opaque systems. We argue that the use of automated decision-making systems sometimes violates duties of consideration that are owed by decision-makers to decision-subjects, duties that are both epistemic and practical in character. Violations of that kind generate a weighty consideration against the use of opaque decision systems. In the course of defending our approach, we show that it is able to address three major challenges sometimes leveled against attempts to defend the moral import of transparency in automated decision-making.
This study uses a randomized posttest-only between-subjects experiment (N = 148) to investigate the communication rules participants perceive after a journalist interviews a politician about race-related housing policies. Perceived question appropriateness, journalistic bias, and perceived credibility (journalist and politician) were examined depending on the journalist’s varying adversarial stances (no challenge, simple challenge, contextualized challenge). Social dominance orientation (SDO), a key concept associated with racial intolerance, was used as a moderator to understand perceptions of the interview style, the journalist, and the politician. Overall, SDO weighs more heavily than does level of challenge, with high-SDO participants perceiving journalistic challenges on the question of race less appropriate than do low-SDO individuals. Contrary to expectations, low-SDO participants viewed a contextual challenge as less appropriate and the journalist as more biased than when a simple challenge was used. Overall, participants endorsed journalists engaging in the watchdog role.
Researchers have found that gentrification is less likely in Black neighborhoods than in White or Latinx neighborhoods, and that gentrification looks different in Black neighborhoods. For example, researchers have found that Black neighborhoods experience marginal gentrification—changes in the educational level but not the income of residents. This study uses Census and National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) data to explore the relationship between gentrification and racial change in Washington, DC between 2000 and 2019. We measure gentrification using four distinct but related measures: change in home value, rent, average educational level, and household income. The results show a positive association between changes in the percentage of residents with college degrees and the percentage of White residents in neighborhoods that were majority Black in 2000. We also find a positive association between changes in the percentage of Latinx residents and the average rent. We do not find a significant relationship between racial change and changes in home value and average income. Our findings point to the importance of including race in models of gentrification as well as using different measures of gentrification to capture it more fully.
This article advances a novel “critical race urban-environmental sociology” (CRUES) approach that synthesizes Marxist and critical race theory to focus on the “production of racialized hazardous space” and “residential security” during the Great Depression in the U.S. It applies the CRUES lens to the work of Frederick M. Babcock, the economist who disseminated authoritative and racially discriminatory statements on residential security and neighborhood appraisals before and during his tenure at the Federal Housing Administration. The article shows how Babcock paralleled and intersected with strands of classic urban ecology to conflate racially segregated and environmentally hazardous neighborhoods and naturalize their devalued status. Using the CRUES lens, the article also frames the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) worst neighborhood rating in its 1930s Residential Security Surveys as racialized hazardous space, and advances a conceptual model for future research on how environmental hazards, racialized social “threats,” and other sociospatial factors conditioned HOLC hazardous grade assignments.
Neighborhoods in the United States are highly segregated by race. Black–white segregation is particularly acute. Although racial segregation has been declining in recent years, it remains extremely high—especially in the largest metropolitan areas. The historical pattern has been that as African Americans move into a neighborhood, whites move out and thus the neighborhood (gradually or rapidly) transitions from predominantly white to predominantly black. A seemingly contradictory pattern has recently been observed: integrated neighborhoods are becoming more common. Why do some neighborhoods transition from white to black and others become integrated? We use racial competition theory to answer this question. We examine the characteristics of stable, integrated neighborhoods and contrast them with segregated predominantly white, predominantly black, and rapidly transitioning neighborhoods in six large metropolitan areas. We find that the location of black neighborhoods is a key factor in whether an integrated neighborhood remains integrated. Specifically, we find integrated neighborhoods are spatially distant from majority black neighborhoods while transitioning neighborhoods are adjacent to them. Our findings support the “sense of threat” hypothesis of racial competition theory.
The historically complex relationship between Blacks and Whites is believed to play an important role in the way offenders select their victims in violent crimes. This study tests two theories that have been used to explain interracial crimes: racial animosity theory and racial threat theory. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) from 1992 through 2016, we conduct two analyses of the racial dyads of White and Black offenders and victims to examine the role racial characteristics play in interpersonal crimes. Multinomial logistic regression is used to first analyze the likelihood of weapon use before narrowing our analysis specifically to handguns use. The findings provide minimal support for both racial threat theory and racial animosity theory.
Disaster aid is an increasingly costly form of social spending and an often-overlooked way that welfare states manage new forms of risk related to climate change. In this article, I argue that disaster aid programs engender racial and socioeconomic inequalities through a process of assistance access constituted by distinct state logics, administrative burdens, and bureaucratic actors. I test this claim empirically by analyzing 5.37 million applicant records from FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program (IHP) from 2005 to 2016. Results demonstrate that key institutional features—the conditions of eligibility and sufficiency, burdens of proof, and assessments by contracted inspectors—combine in a stepwise process to funnel permanent repair resources to homeowners in whiter communities, while temporary rental aid is granted disproportionately to households in communities of color. Analyses of denial codes suggest racial disparities in appraisals of disaster damage. Among those approved for aid, more benefits accrue to those from comparatively higher income communities, and a decoupling of permanent and temporary housing aid further stratifies socioeconomic growth during recovery. Theoretically, this research advances an account of institutional processes transferable to other analyses of social programs, and it introduces climate risk as a new form of social risk against which welfare states insure citizens.
Unsafe rental units are disproportionately located in communities of color, resulting in numerous detrimental effects for residents’ health and socioeconomic well-being. Yet, scholars disagree regarding the mechanisms driving this phenomenon. Exogenous capitalism theories emphasize socioeconomic factors while setter-colonial racial capitalism theories emphasize the racist policies and practices that incentivize unequal investment and maintenance. We empirically adjudicate between these mechanisms by merging restricted-access versions of the American Housing Survey, the Rental Housing Finance Survey, and the American Community Survey at a Census Restricted Data Center. Our findings demonstrate neighborhood White proportion is a key mechanism shaping the condition of rental units even when controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic status, property features, and renter demographics. We argue these results support settler-colonial racial capitalism theories and discuss the implications of these findings for future research and housing policy.
Drawing from stratification economics, intersectionality, and respectability politics, The Love Jones Cohort centers on the voices and lifestyles of members of the Black middle class who are single and living alone (SALA). While much has been written about both the Black middle class and the rise of singlehood, this book represents a first foray into bridging these two concepts. In studying these intersections, The Love Jones Cohort provides a more nuanced understanding of how race, gender, and class, coupled with social structures, shape five central lifestyle factors of Black middle-class adults who are SALA. The book explores how these Black adults define family and friends and decide on whether and how to pursue romantic relationships, articulate the ebbs and flows of being Black and middle class, select where to live and why, accumulate and disseminate wealth, and maintain overall health, well-being, and coping mechanisms.
Urban studies scholars have explored the relationship between anti-Black residential preferences and segregation for nearly 50 years in the United States. The classical conception was that Black-white segregation was created and reinforced by a mix of anti-Black preference, discrimination, and poverty. Recently, scholars have been puzzled about why open anti-Blackness has diminished, but segregation has not. The compelling explanations for this turn are useful, but of limited applicability for cities outside of the United States in the Global North. In places such as Paris, London, and Toronto, substantial Black populations are of relatively recent origin, so some of the historical and social drivers of American segregation do not exist in the same form there, even if anti-Blackness does. This paper explores anti-Black residential preferences in Toronto using a 2,314-person online panel. I argue that the racial capitalism paradigm provides a more flexible and robust way to interpret the consequences of anti-Black preferences than segregation metrics. Housing markets are a primary mechanism for materializing racism. At times, that takes the form of segregation, but at other times it assumes different, but equally material, forms.
The last several years have seen accelerated activity and discourse directed at antiracism. Specifically following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, institutions across the country engaged in a range of introspective exercises and transparent reckonings examining their practices, policies, and history insofar as equity and racism is concerned. The authors of this article, both active protagonists in this domain, have been, and continue to be, part of ongoing national efforts and have learned much about the strategies and tactics necessary to initiate, engage, and sustain traction on the path to antiracism.
Sociological studies of poverty governance investigate how state actors manage marginalized populations, regulate their participation in social institutions, and reform their behavior through systems of punishment and rewards. Research in this area considers a range of institutions involved in managing poverty, but it has largely ignored an institution omnipresent in the lives of the poor—public housing agencies (PHAs). Focusing on the Housing Choice Voucher program, the largest rental assistance program in the country, I examine discretionary choices made by PHAs that affect who gets access to rental assistance, how long clients have to wait, and what they must do to maintain their benefits. I ask how these administrative decisions create successive opportunities for state agencies to govern the poor. Drawing on interviews with agency officials, I describe a tripartite process of selecting market-ready households, engaging them in rituals of market formation, and utilizing market nudges to remind them of their responsibilities as market actors. This framework deepens sociological understandings of how local state agencies utilize discretionary choices in a resource-scarce, highly decentralized policy environment to evaluate, reform, and discipline the poor.
While evidence suggests a durable relationship between redlining and population health, we currently lack an empirical account of how this historical act of racialized violence produced contemporary inequities. In this paper, we use a mediation framework to evaluate how redlining grades influenced later life expectancy and the degree to which contemporary racial disparities in life expectancy between Black working-class neighborhoods and White professional-class neighborhoods can be explained by past Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) mapping. Life expectancy gaps between differently graded tracts are driven by economic isolation and disparate property valuation which developed within these areas in subsequent decades. Still, only a small percent of a total disparity between contemporary Black and White neighborhoods is explained by HOLC grades. We discuss the role of HOLC maps in analyses of structural racism and health, positioning them as only one feature of a larger public–private project conflating race with financial risk. Policy implications include not only targeting resources to formerly redlined neighborhoods but also the larger project of dismantling racist theories of value that are deeply embedded in the political economy of place.
This article argues that analysts should examine how individuals perceive and construct value in order to understand persistent forms of inequality. Drawing on years of ethnographic observations of real estate professionals and homeseekers across various segments of the housing markets in Houston, TX and New York, NY, this article develops the concepts of value fluidity and value anchoring to describe how valuation occurs and to better theorize how valuation itself reproduces racial–spatial inequality in housing. It shows that consumers’ valuation criteria can be quite malleable and highly influenced by intermediaries and experts. At the same time, valuation is patterned in reference to existing hierarchies. The article concludes by arguing for the importance of theorizing valuation through observation of market interactions and by showing why investigations of the housing market must focus on intermediaries.
Interscholastic sports are an important resource that provides access to social, cultural, and economic capital; however, not all students have equal access to sports in public high schools. Utilizing theories of systemic racism, this study shows how racism affects housing and property taxes, which shapes resources provided in public schools. The authors use the example of interscholastic sports as a school resource to highlight another form of resource inequality in public schools. Findings reveal that public schools with more White students have more sports while schools with more Black students have fewer sports. Findings also reveal that public schools with more students on free lunch have fewer sports than schools with fewer students on free lunch. The authors argue that the lack of access to interscholastic sports is another way in which racial and class inequality is perpetuated in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Neighbourhood context is known to shape one’s life chances, but much of neighbourhood disadvantage is passed down from parents to children. The gap in social and economic achievements between Black and White families in the United States may partially be explained by differences in the intergenerational transmission of neighbourhood context. Using census tract socio-economic data, we created a national ranking of US census tracts. We then examined intergenerational neighbourhood mobility using 2828 parent–child pairs from a longitudinal household survey. We found that White children, compared with Black children, were more likely to inherit higher neighbourhood ranks from their parents. Income and education had smaller negative effects on neighbourhood rank for White children than Black children, all other things equal. Black children whose parents were in the bottom 25th percentile neighbourhood rank tended to move up in neighbourhood rank. But by much smaller magnitudes than their White counterparts. Our findings indicate that different patterns of intergenerational neighbourhood mobility between White and Black families may be an important factor for persisting racial disparities in the neighbourhood context.
There has been a renewed interest in moving back into cities, which are close to business districts and offer affordable and unique housing. However, the available housing is limited and may require renovation as available housing close to the citycenter is often located in more economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Property repairs and upgrading contributes not only to the improvement of individual owners’ properties, but the neighborhood overall. This influx of new residents and subsequent investment in housing can impact neighborhood crime, but the majority of the research on housing and crime has focused largely on home mortgage loans. The current study extends the housing investment literature by using an underutilized data source: home improvement and refinance loans, which signal physical improvement in the housing stock. This process may be different for neighborhoods that have a higher prevalence of minority residents as historically these residents have been subjected to inequitable lending practices. The current study examines how revitalization efforts in Cleveland, Ohio have influenced crime rates for the years 2007 through 2017 with special attention paid to the interplay of neighborhood racial composition and home improvement loans. Results from fixed-effects panel analysis reveal that home improvement loans are associated with an increase in property but not violent crime rates overall. Splitting neighborhoods into predominantly Black versus all other neighborhoods, however, results show that higher rates of home improvement loans are associated with lower violent crime rates, but the effect is tempered in Black neighborhoods. This suggests that the relationship between home improvement loans and violent crime is more complicated and varies by neighborhood composition.
In this dissertation, I examine how we quantify the dynamic, cumulative effects of relational social exposures with longitudinal survey data. In Chapter 1, I demonstrate a new mediation framework for describing what are often conceptualized problematically as “neighborhood effects.” Findings from this study clarify the reciprocal, life-course process through which neighborhood is implicated in the early production of social inequality. In Chapter 2, I extend this mediation framework to respond to theoretical critiques of how variables for race are used in common regression frameworks in attempts to study structural racism. I demonstrate an alternative counterfactual approach to explain how multiple racialized systems dynamically shape health over time, examining racial inequities in cardio-metabolic risk. I decompose the observed disparity into three types of effects: a controlled direct effect (“unobserved racism”), proportions attributable to interaction (“racial discrimination”), and pure indirect effects (“emergent discrimination”). I discuss the limitations of counterfactual approaches while highlighting how they can be combined with critical theories to quantify how interlocking systems produce racial health inequities. In Chapter 3, I use this framework to examine the Black-white wealth gap in the United States. Descriptive and qualitative analyses have identified many mechanisms underlying wealth correlations across successive generations, but few studies have quantified the relative contributions of these interconnected and racialized systems of reproduction to the total gap we observe today. I define a wealth gap in 2015–17 between the grandchildren of those racialized as Black and the grandchildren of those racialized as white in 1968–70. I use a fully interacted counterfactual mediation framework to decompose this disparity into the historical, racialized contributions of 1) effects of home values in 1968–70 on home values in successive generations and 2) effects via educational attainment in successive generations. Findings from this study contribute to our understanding of the dynamic, racialized process of multigenerational place-based wealth accumulation and support the importance of historically contingent social policy centered on reparative justice.
Sociologists of culture are interested in processes of valuation, such as the way we value the division of labor. Typically measured through occupational prestige, prior research on this topic has largely neglected the potential role of race in the construction of the status hierarchy. This study asks whether and how race shapes judgments of occupational prestige, drawing on key insights from the sociology of race and ethnicity (Whiteness as a credential, strategic assimilation) to test key predictions about racial composition and a person’s own racial identity in this process. Combining data from the 2012 General Social Survey with federal administrative data, I find that Whiter jobs are, in fact, seen as more prestigious, even after taking into account an occupation’s level of required education/training, pay, industry, and gender composition. Further analyses demonstrate that this pattern is primarily driven by White and Asian raters and by raters with a college degree. Overall, then, this study indicates that the racial segregation of occupations impacts not only wages but also the status they confer to their incumbents.
In this article, we describe how residential segregation and individual racial disparities generate racialized patterns of subprime lending and lead to financial loss among black borrowers in segregated cities. We conceptualize race as a cumulative disadvantage because of its direct and indirect effects on socioeconomic status at the individual and neighborhood levels, with consequences that reverberate across a borrower's life and between generations. Using Baltimore, Maryland as a case study setting, we combine data from reports filed under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act with additional loan-level data from mortgage-backed securities. We find that race and neighborhood racial segregation are critical factors explaining black disadvantage across successive stages in the process of lending and foreclosure, controlling for differences in borrower credit scores, income, occupancy status, and loan-to-value ratios. We analyze the cumulative cost of predatory lending to black borrowers in terms of reduced disposable income and lost wealth. We find the cost to be substantial. Black borrowers paid an estimated additional 5 to 11 percent in monthly payments and those that completed foreclosure in the sample lost an excess of $2 million in home equity. These costs were magnified in mostly black neighborhoods and in turn heavily concentrated in communities of color. By elucidating the mechanisms that link black segregation to discrimination we demonstrate how processes of cumulative disadvantage continue to undermine black socioeconomic status in the United States today.
Globalization and the information revolution are motivating a large and growing number of countries around the globe to reexamine the roles of various levels of government and their partnership with the private sector and civil society. These reforms typically involve shifting responsibilities to local governments and beyond government providers with the objective of strengthening local governance. This movement has generated a large interest in learning from the history of nations as well as from a current practices across countries on local government organization and finance. In this context, the experiences of industrial countries, with their diversity of approaches to local governance, can serve as a useful laboratory for developing countries.
This book develops a comparative institutional framework for responsible, responsible, and accountable governance in developing countries. It provides a synthesis of analytical literature on local governance. It traces the historical evolution of local governance and presents a stylized view of alternative models of local governance practiced in various countries. It also presents case studies for eight industrial countries by leading national scholars. The case studies present an in-depth vies of local government organization and finance in each country -- Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- and highlight features of interest to developing countries.
A critical pathway for conceptual innovation in the social is the construction of theoretical ideas based on empirical data. Grounded theory has become a leading approach promising the construction of novel theories. Yet grounded theory–based theoretical innovation has been scarce in part because of its commitment to let theories emerge inductively rather than imposing analytic frameworks a priori. We note, along with a long philosophical tradition, that induction does not logically lead to novel theoretical insights. Drawing from the theory of inference, meaning, and action of pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce, we argue that abduction, rather than induction, should be the guiding principle of empirically based theory construction. Abduction refers to a creative inferential process aimed at producing new hypotheses and theories based on surprising research evidence. We propose that abductive analysis arises from actors’ social and intellectual positions but can be further aided by careful methodological data analysis. We outline how formal methodological steps enrich abductive analysis through the processes of revisiting, defamiliarization, and alternative casing.
Designation of historic districts is increasingly used as a tool to revive or halt the deterioration of central-city neighbourhoods. While historic designation is generally thought to have a positive impact on property values, evidence on this issue is mixed. One limitation of previous research is that it typically focuses on historic neighbourhoods in one city and thus bases its conclusions on a very limited sample. This study expands upon previous work by examining the effects of designation on property values across a larger set of cities. The study employs hedonic regression models to estimate housing prices in historic districts and comparable neighbourhoods in nine Texas cities. Results suggest that, in most cases, historic designation is associated with higher property values.
The rise in subprime lending and the ensuing wave of foreclosures was partly a result of market forces that have been well-identified in the literature, but it was also a highly racialized process. We argue that residential segregation created a unique niche of minority clients who were differentially marketed risky subprime loans that were in great demand for use in mortgage-backed securities that could be sold on secondary markets. We test this argument by regressing foreclosure actions in the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas on measures of black, Hispanic, and Asian segregation while controlling for a variety of housing market conditions, including average creditworthiness, the extent of coverage under the Community Reinvestment Act, the degree of zoning regulation, and the overall rate of subprime lending. We find that black residential dissimilarity and spatial isolation are powerful predictors of foreclosures across U.S. metropolitan areas. To isolate subprime lending as the causal mechanism through which segregation influences foreclosures, we estimate a two-stage least squares model that confirms the causal effect of black segregation on the number and rate of foreclosures across metropolitan areas. We thus conclude that segregation was an important contributing cause of the foreclosure crisis, along with overbuilding, risky lending practices, lax regulation, and the bursting of the housing price bubble.
Almost a decade ago, the Kerner Commission warned that this country was moving toward two societies—one white and one black. Data on residential segregation indicate clear-cut boundaries for these two societies—large cities are becoming black but most suburban areas remain white. Detroit is a case in point and this led the 1976 Detroit Area Study to investigate the sources of racial residential segregation. Our approach was guided by three hypothesized causes of this segregation: (i) the economic status of blacks, (ii) the preference of blacks to be with their own kind, and (iii) the resistance of whites to residential integration. We developed several new measurement techniques and found that most evidence supported the third hypothesis. Blacks in the Detroit area can afford suburban housing and both blacks and whites are quite knowledgable about the housing market. Most black respondents expressed a preference for mixed neighborhoods and are willing to enter such areas. Whites, on the other hand, are reluctant to remain in neighborhoods where blacks are moving in and will not buy homes in already integrated areas. This last result has been overlooked by traditional measures of white attitudes toward residential integration but emerges clearly with the new measure.
Analysis of change in diversity and segregation in the Houston Metropolitan area. Joint project between Kinder Institute for Urban Research and the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas
This study examines the historical establishment and shifting residential access to city parks over time. It begins by engaging and extending a theory of urbanization as socioenvironmental succession. It then assembles and analyzes longitudinal data on city park creation and neighborhood change in Houston from 1947 to 2015. Results reveal how socially privileged residents have long enjoyed unequal access to city parks as well as strong influence over where new ones are established. At the same time, growing minority populations have managed to gain more equitable access not by having new parks come to them so much as by moving into neighborhoods where Whites once lived. These dynamics obscure past processes and patterns of inequality while allowing newer, unexpected ones to emerge. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings imply for understanding not just unequal access to city parks but broader processes of urbanization.
The real estate brokerage industry has long perpetuated overt discrimination against minority housing consumers, but we know little about how it may reproduce inequality through less overt means. In this article, I highlight real estate agents’ (REAs) reliance on social networks as key to how this “new inequality” happens. Specifically, I investigate the contextual factors that enable white agents to maintain predominantly white networks and how disparate-impact consequences for minority home buyers and sellers emerge when white agents deploy their networks in ordinary housing situations. My examination relies on one year of ethnographic research with 10 REAs and 49 in-depth interviews with REAs, home buyers, and home sellers in the Houston housing market. I begin my analysis by documenting agents’ racially stratified networks. I then unpack how agent pay structure and status as market gatekeepers supported the persistence of white agents’ white networks and constrained minority agents’ business opportunities. Finally, I show how white agents’ reliance on white networks came together with other widely shared practices to negatively affect minority home buyers and sellers, excluding them from for-sale homes and competitive customer service. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for mitigating housing market inequality.
This article leverages a unique data set, recently developed regression methods, and qualitative interviews to investigate the multiple ways real estate agents produce housing inequality. We find that the clustering of agents in and around certain neighborhoods correlates positively with house prices. Our results also show a significant relationship between agent concentration and racial segregation. Our qualitative data reveal how agents engage in steering and upselling. The findings enhance our understanding of mechanisms in the housing market, and provide more empirical clarity on the role real estate agents play in asset and place inequality.
The nominal annual average appreciation rates of single-family detached houses in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the period of 1971-1993 are estimated. After controlling for housing quality differences, the rates vary significantly across 111 neighborhoods, ranging from -0.82 percent to 8.75 percent. Recent violent crime rates, median incomes, growth of housing units, and the proportion of blacks and Hispanics in the neighborhood significantly affect the appreciation rates. However, even after controlling for other independent variables, the annual appreciation rate in all-white neighborhoods is approximately 3 percent greater than in all-minority neighborhoods.
The award-winning Black Wealth / White Wealth offers a powerful portrait of racial inequality based on an analysis of private wealth. Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro's groundbreaking research analyzes wealth - total assets and debts rather than income alone - to uncover deep and persistent racial inequality in America, and they show how public policies have failed to redress the problem.
1. The New Imperative for Equality 2. Origins of Economic Disparities: Historical Role of Housing Segregation 3. From Credit Denial to Predatory Lending: The Challenge of Sustaining Minority Homeownership 4. Housing and Education: The Inextricable Link 5. Residential Segregation and Employment Inequality 6. Impacts of Housing and Neighborhoods on Health: Pathways, Racial/Ethnic Disparities, and Policy Directions 7. Neighborhood Segregation, Personal Networks, and Access to Social Resources 8. Continuing Isolation: Segregation in America Today 9. Trends in the U.S. Economy: The Evolving Role of Minorities 10. The Prospects and Pitfalls of Fair Housing Enforcement Efforts 11. Attaining a Just (and Economically Secure) Society
A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the boom in standardized test scores and charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do parents actually use while choosing schools? Are there differences among suburban and urban families? How do parents’ choices influence school and residential segregation in America? Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools presents a breakthrough analysis of the new era of school choice, and what it portends for American neighborhoods. The distinguished contributors to Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools investigate the complex relationship between education, neighborhood social networks, and larger patterns of inequality. Paul Jargowsky reviews recent trends in segregation by race and class. His analysis shows that segregation between blacks and whites has declined since 1970, but remains extremely high. Moreover, white families with children are less likely than childless whites to live in neighborhoods with more minority residents. In her chapter, Annette Lareau draws on interviews with parents in three suburban neighborhoods to analyze school-choice decisions. Surprisingly, she finds that middle- and upper-class parents do not rely on active research, such as school tours or test scores. Instead, most simply trust advice from friends and other people in their network. Their decision-making process was largely informal and passive. Eliot Weinginer complements this research when he draws from his data on urban parents. He finds that these families worry endlessly about the selection of a school, and that parents of all backgrounds actively consider alternatives, including charter schools. Middle- and upper-class parents relied more on federally mandated report cards, district websites, and online forums, while working-class parents use network contacts to gain information on school quality. Little previous research has explored what role school concerns play in the preferences of white and minority parents for particular neighborhoods. Featuring innovative work from more than a dozen scholars, Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools adroitly addresses this gap and provides a firmer understanding of how Americans choose where to live and send their children to school.
We argue that the relative persistence of racial segregation is due, at least in part, to the process of residential search and the perceptions upon which those searches are based—a critical but often-ignored component of the residential sorting process. We examine where Chicago-area residents would “seriously consider” and “never consider” living, finding that community attraction and avoidance are highly racialized. Race most clearly shapes the residential perceptions and preferences of whites, and matters the least to blacks. Latinos would seriously consider moving to numerous neighborhoods, but controls for demographics and distance from the respondents’ home make Latino preferences much like those of whites. Critically, the geography of existing segregation begets further segregation: distance from current community significantly affects perceptions of the communities into which respondents might move. While neighborhood perception may cause persistent segregation, it may also offer hope for integration with appropriate policy interventions.
This article explores why and how homeowners in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, took out subprime mortgage loans, and the effect of these loans on individuals and their community. It analyzes real estate histories for properties on four street blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant by linking public data for real estate transactions with homeowners' descriptions of those transactions, gathered through interviews. Subprime lending flourished in a neighborhood that historically was redlined by conventional lenders, and created and exacerbated poverty, as it stripped equity from individuals and the neighborhood. Many homeowners in the study managed to combat this process of becoming poor, however. Homeowners are averting foreclosure while making sacrifices that are not apparent from data for mortgage foreclosures, neighborhood appearance, or initial conversations with residents and community leaders. Longtime homeowners' personal and neighborhood narratives of upward mobility and stability remain sacrosanct and attached to homeownership, even when belied by financial realities. More recent homeowners are more likely to focus on safety concerns and economic uncertainty and to consider leaving. These findings suggest that efforts to address the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis and to prevent its recurrence should include homeowners who are not in foreclosure, but may nonetheless be struggling, and that solutions must consider homeowners' relationships with their communities.
How do we attribute a monetary value to intangible things? This article offers a general sociological approach to this question, using the economic value of nature as a paradigmatic case, and oil spills litigations in France and the United States as real world empirical illustrations. It suggests that a full-blown sociology of economic valuation must solve three problems: the “why,” which refers to the general place of money as a metric for worth; the “how,” which refers to the specific techniques and arguments laymen and experts deploy to elicit monetary translations; and the “then what” or the feedback loop from monetary values to social practices and representations.
Are housing prices lower in neighborhoods with high concentrations of black residents? If so, is this relationship evidence of pure discrimination, or can it be explained by considering nonracial neighborhood traits? These questions derive their importance from the link between mobility patterns and residential segregation, and the consequent relationship between high levels of segregation and a host of deleterious outcomes. I assess the magnitude and motivations of racial aversion by conducting a hedonic price analysis of geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I find clear evidence of lower property values in neighborhoods with relatively high proportions of black residents. However, whether it is blacks' race or their socioeconomic status that affects property values depends on whether housing units are rented or owner-occupied.
The debate about racial residential preferences has two open questions. First, are neighborhood racial preferences truly racial, or is race a proxy for socio-economic factors? Second, are in-group or out-group preferences more salient? Using the Houston Area Survey, we employ a factorial experiment to assess the effect of racial composition on neighborhood desirability independent of crime, school quality and property values. We survey whites, blacks and Hispanics to examine in-group vs. out-group preferences. Results show that independent of proxies, whites find neighborhoods less attractive as the proportion black or Hispanic increases; the proportion Asian has no impact. Racial composition has little effect on Hispanics' and blacks' neighborhood preferences. We find no evidence of in-group preferences; rather, results suggest that whites express negative out-group preferences toward black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
This article explores racial/ethnic differences in community knowledge as a contributing mechanism through which residential segregation in U. S. cities is perpetuated. If whites, blacks, and Latinos are familiar with different communities, and that familiarity is influenced by community racial/ethnic composition, then these "blind spots" may constitute one barrier to integrative mobility. We address three questions: (1) Do blacks, whites, and Latinos have different community blind spots?; (2) Do blacks, whites, and Latinos of the same social, economic, and geographic backgrounds still have different blind spots?; and (3) Do the racial/ethnic characteristics of the community predict a racial/ethnic difference in blind spots, net of the respondent's and the community's other characteristics? Employing logistic regression and hierarchical linear models with data from the 2004-2005 Chicago Area Study, we explore how whites, blacks, and Latinos differ in their knowledge of actual communities in the Chicago metropolitan area and whether differences persist after controlling for social class characteristics. Results show strong evidence that community knowledge is shaped by race-both of the resident and of the target community. Policy implications of the results are discussed.
Today, ethnographers and qualitative researchers in fields such as urban poverty, immigration, and social inequality face an environment in which their work will be read, cited, and assessed by demographers, quantitative sociologists, and even economists. They also face a demand for case studies of poor, minority, or immigrant groups and neighborhoods that not only generate theory but also somehow speak to empirical conditions in other cases (not observed). Many have responded by incorporating elements of quantitative methods into their designs, such as selecting respondents `at random' for small, in-depth interview projects or identifying `representative' neighborhoods for ethnographic case studies, aiming to increase generalizability. This article assesses these strategies and argues that they fall short of their objectives. Recognizing the importance of the predicament underlying the strategies — to determine how case studies can speak empirically to other cases — it presents two alternatives to current practices, and calls for greater clarity in the logic of design when producing ethnographic research in a multi-method intellectual environment.
Sociology is a discipline in which the idea of a multi-method research design has held credence for many years, far before the term mixed methods research was coined. This article charts the implementation and framing of this approach over time to better understand the place and state of mixed methods research in the discipline today. Several recent applications of mixed method research by sociologists are highlighted to demonstrate the range of projects being conducted. There are challenges to further development of mixed methods inquiry within Sociology; however, the current epistemological base of the approach—pragmatism—promotes the merits of a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches and the discipline is better for it.
This article assesses whether housing in predominantly minority and integrated neighborhoods appreciates more slowly than
comparable housing in predominantly white communities, and if so, the extent to which inequality is due to neighborhood racial
composition per se rather than nonracial socioeconomic and housing structure factors. I take a dynamic approach to the issue
of housing appreciation, considering both racial, ethnic, and poverty composition at purchase and change in those characteristics
over time. I examine differences in real housing appreciation across black, white, and Hispanic households by applying a hedonic
price analysis to data from the Health and Retirement Study, combined with data from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Census. While
much of neighborhood appreciation inequality is explained by nonracial (particularly socioeconomic) factors, minority composition
continues to exert a significant effect on appreciation even net of these considerations, particularly in highly segregated
communities and those that experience large increases in black representation. Unequal housing appreciation has a large negative
impact on the overall wealth holdings of mature minority households, and has important implications for racial and ethnic
stratification.
To understand the persistence of racial disparities across multiple domains (e.g., residential location, schooling, employment, health, housing, credit, and justice) and to develop effective remedies, we must recognize that these domains are reciprocally related and comprise an integrated system. The limited long-run success of government social policies to advance racial justice is due in part to the ad hoc nature of policy responses to various forms of racial discrimination. Drawing on a systems perspective, I show that race discrimination is a system whose emergent properties reinforce the effects of their components. The emergent property of a system of race-linked disparities is über discrimination—a meta-level phenomenon that shapes our culture, cognitions, and institutions, thereby distorting whether and how we perceive and make sense of racial disparities. Viewing within-domain disparities as part of a discrimination system requires better-specified analytic models. While the existence of an emerg...
The study of housing has a long history in sociology, but after the 1970s, it has been relatively hidden within and across a number of sociological subfields, and scattered across a range of disciplines. The financial crisis of 2008 elevated housing issues to national and international debate and protest, and offers a framework for organizing the scholarship on housing into that which studies housing as a commodity, on one hand, and as a right, on another. In the former category, I review the literature on mortgage financing; property values and wealth; and affordable rental housing, foreclosures, and evictions. In the latter category, I discuss the theoretical arguments for a right to housing and review the research on activist demands for that right. The tension between these two aspects of housing is discussed throughout. I conclude by proposing the actual home or apartment as a productive area for new sociological analysis. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology Volu...
Racial and ethnic inequality has manifested itself in wealth ownership and access to quality housing. Home ownership is considered a good basis on which to build equity. Whereas property values and their appreciation have been analyzed in those inner city neighborhoods that have high proportions of racially and ethnically underrepresented groups, not much systematic research has been undertaken on these issues in homogeneous versus mixed-race suburbs. By analyzing census tracts within select counties across the United States with weighted least squares (WLS) regressions, this article investigates differences among suburban census tracts in terms of several factors, including property values and their appreciation rates and factors, that have influenced property values. Based on the results, it is concluded that the assumption that home ownership in the suburbs leads to the building of housing wealth needs to be differentiated.
Wealth inequality, particularly in housing, has received increased attention in recent years for its importance to racial and ethnic stratification. Yet, while we know a fair amount about black-white wealth inequality, many questions remain regarding sources of Hispanic asset inequality. This article addresses this gap by examining racial and ethnic inequality in homeownership and housing equity among the pre-retirement population. Results support a stratification perspective of inequality for both blacks and Hispanics; even after accounting for numerous life-cycle, resource, and social-psychological considerations, blacks and Hispanics continue to lag significantly behind whites in housing wealth. While Hispanics initially appear better off than blacks with respect to housing, this is largely a function of their more favorable family structure. Important differences between blacks and Hispanics in the main contributors to housing inequality highlight the need to take a more multiethnic perspective on wealth stratification.
This article, presented at Brooklyn Law School’s 2009 Sparer Public Interest Law Symposium on a panel entitled Stopping the Next Subprime Crisis, is part of a larger project of information and strategy-sharing among academics, policy analysts and attorneys involved in foreclosure and predatory lending prevention. The article marshals and analyzes evidence of discriminatory and deceptive marketing practices by subprime mortgage lenders and brokers. It also supports current proposals for policy reforms that could address the misuse of new marketing technologies in this context.
It is widely believed that home ownership is an important part of the American dream. It signifies the stability and prosperity of the homeowner's life. Also well known is that home equity is the single largest asset for most households in the United States. For example, analyzing the Survey of Consumer Finances of 1998 data, Kennickell et. al. (1999) report that 55 per cent of the total household net worth is in the form of the primary residence and that the median net worth of homeowners in the U.S. is 45,000. However, there is a substantial gap in achieving the American dream of homeownership across racial groups. Homeownership rates of black and Hispanic households have been more than 20 percentage points below than that of white households for more than 20 years. Although some of the differences in homeownership rates across races can be explained by the differences in socio-economic characteristics of the various racial groups, different house price appreciation rates in different racial neighborhoods should account for some of these differences. For example, if a household lived in a neighborhood where home prices do not appreciate very much compared to other neighborhoods, they would be less likely to own a home. In this paper, we provide strong empirical evidence that the neighborhoods that are heavily resided in by racial minorities experience low appreciation rates in the long run. It is estimated that the racial premium of all-white neighborhood compared to all-minority neighborhood is about 3 percent per year.
While urban parks are generally considered to be a positive amenity, past research suggests that some parks are perceived as a neighborhood liability. Using hedonic analysis of property data in Baltimore, MD, we attempted to determine whether crime rate mediates how parks are valued by the housing market. Transacted price was regressed against park proximity, area-weighted robbery and rape rates for the Census block groups encompassing the parks, and an interaction term, adjusting for a number of other variables. Four models were estimated, including one where selling price was log-transformed but distance to park was not, one where both were log-transformed, a Box–Cox regression, and a spatially adjusted regression. All results indicate that park proximity is positively valued by the housing market where the combined robbery and rape rates for a neighborhood are below a certain threshold rate but negatively valued where above that threshold. Depending on which model is used, this threshold occurs at a crime index value of between 406 and 484 (that is, between 406% and 484% of the national average; the average rate by block group for Baltimore is 475% of the national average). For all models, the further the crime index value is from the threshold value for a particular property, the steeper the relationship is between park proximity and home value.
We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, data from three U.S. censuses, and techniques of spatial data analysis to examine how the composition of extralocal areas - those areas surrounding a householder's neighborhood of residence - affect the likelihood that whites will move out of their neighborhood. Net of the influence of local neighborhood conditions and other predictors of residential mobility, high concentrations of minorities in surrounding neighborhoods reduce the likelihood that white householders will move, presumably by reducing the attractiveness of the most likely residential alternatives. This effect suppresses the influence of the racial composition of the immediate neighborhood so that controlling for extralocal conditions provides substantially greater support for the white flight thesis than has previously been observed. We also find that recent growth in the size of the extralocal minority population increases the likelihood of white out-migration and accounts for much of the influence previously attributed to racial change in the local neighborhood. Finally, high levels of minority concentration in surrounding neighborhoods exacerbate the positive effect of local minority concentration on white out-migration. These results highlight the importance of looking beyond reactions to local racial conditions to understand mobility decisions and resulting patterns of segregation.
The purpose of this paper is to examine black-white differences in housing appreciation in northern New Jersey, with particular emphasis on the communities of Montclair and Maplewood in the 1970 to 2000 period. We find that home appreciation at the block group level in these communities was inversely related to changes in the black population. The effect of changes in the proportion of the population that was black on home appreciation was similar to the effects of changes in black population at the census tract level in the northern New Jersey region as a whole. These high income communities with award winning school districts and well maintained housing stocks were not immune from the effects of race on home appreciation.
Racial differences in the receipt of financial inheritances help to explain why the average difference in wealth between black and white households is larger than the average difference in income. Using data from a panel of prime-aged males and from a representative survey of the U.S. population, the authors document the greater likelihood of white households receiving an inheritance than black households. Controlling for other factors which contribute to racial differences in wealth, the authors estimate that financial inheritances may account for between 10 percent and 20 percent of the average difference in black-white household wealth. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.
We empirically examine the role of appraisal in the residential mortgage lending process--in particular, the incidence, consequences, and determinants of appraisal below contract purchase price. Using the Boston Federal Reserve Study data set, we find that, as expected, low appraised value significantly increases the probability of mortgage loan application rejection. We find no evidence that low appraised value is related to census tract racial composition, an important finding given the history of the appraisal industry; however, low appraised value is related to proxies for neighborhood quality. Moreover, properties securing adjustable rate mortgages, condominiums, and properties purchased by African American buyers show an increased probability of low appraisal, though the race effect result is highly sensitive to model specification. Copyright 1998 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
In an earlier paper, Goodman and Thibodeau [Journal of Housing Economics 7 (1998) 121] examined housing market segmentation within metropolitan Dallas using hierarchical models (Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods, Sage, Newbury Park, 1992) and single-family property transactions over the 1995:1–1997:1 periods. Their preliminary results suggested that hierarchical models provide a useful framework for delineating housing submarket boundaries and that the metropolitan Dallas housing market is segmented by the quality of public education (as measured by student performance on standardized tests). This paper examines whether delineating submarkets in the manner proposed by Goodman and Thibodeau improves hedonic estimates of property value. We include two additional housing submarket constructions in our evaluation: one using census tracts and one using zip code districts. Using data for 28,000 single-family transactions for the 1995:1–1997:1 period, we estimate hedonic house price equations for most of Dallas County as well as individually for each submarket. The parameters of the hedonic house price equations are estimated using a 90% random sample of transactions. The remaining observations are used to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the alternative housing submarket constructions. The empirical results indicate spatial disaggregation yields significant gains in hedonic prediction accuracy.
2016 Spring Real Estate Market Favoring Sellers.” Consumer Affairs
- Huffman Mark
Houston Region Grows More Racially/Ethnically Diverse, with Small Declines in Segregation: A Joint Report Analyzing Census Data from 1990, 2000, and 2010
- Michael O Emerson
- Bratter
- Jenifer
- Mike Cline
- Sampson Robert J.
The New Imperative for Equality
- James H Carr
- Kutty
- K Nandinee
The Texas Appraisers and Appraisal Management Company Survey, 2015
- Hobby Center
- Public Policy