Analyzing oppositional social movements in the context of municipal immigration ordinances, the authors examine whether the explanatory power of resource mobilization, political process, and strain theories of social movements' impact on policy outcomes differs when considering proactive as opposed to reactive movements. The adoption of pro-immigrant (proactive) ordinances was facilitated by the presence of immigrant community organizations and of sympathetic local political allies. The adoption of anti-immigrant (reactive) ordinances was influenced by structural social changes, such as rapid increases in the local Latino population, that were framed as threats. The study also finds that pro-immigrant protest events can influence policy in two ways, contributing both to the passage of pro-immigrant ordinances in the locality where protests occur and also inhibiting the passage of anti-immigrant ordinances in neighboring cities.
Recent studies have used statistical methods to show that minorities were more likely than equally qualified whites to receive high-cost, high-risk loans during the U.S. housing boom, evidence taken to suggest widespread discrimination in the mortgage lending industry. The evidence, however, was indirect, being inferred from racial differentials that persisted after controlling for other factors known to affect the terms of lending. Here we assemble a qualitative database to generate direct evidence of discrimination. Using a sample of 220 statements randomly selected from documents assembled in the course of recent fair lending lawsuits, we code texts for evidence of individual discrimination, structural discrimination, and potential discrimination in mortgage lending practices. We find that 76 percent of the texts indicated the existence of structural discrimination, with only 11 percent suggesting individual discrimination alone. We then present a sample of texts that were coded as discriminatory to reveal the way in which racial discrimination was embedded within the social structure of U.S. mortgage lending, and to reveal the specific microsocial mechanisms by which this discrimination was effected.
As housing costs continue to increase across many cities in North America and Europe, local governments face pressure to understand how housing’s rising cost is changing neighbourhoods and to ensure that everyone can access a home they can afford. To confront displacement concerns, cities are adapting models developed within academia to identify neighbourhoods that may be susceptible to gentrification and displacement. We compare four gentrification and displacement risk models developed by and for the US cities of Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and apply all four methodologies to one city, Boston. We identify the geographic areas of agreement and disagreement among the methods. The comparison reveals striking differences between the models, both in inputs and outputs. Of the 18 variables considered among the four models, only two variables appear in all four models. In the resulting maps, the four methods identified between 25 and 119 of the 180 Boston census tracts as at risk of gentrification and displacement, or as currently gentrifying. There are only seven tracts that all four models agreed were either gentrifying or at risk of gentrification and displacement. The findings indicate a need for cities to consider critically the assumptions of the models that are included in urban policy documents, as indicators and thresholds have major impacts on how neighbourhoods in the liminal space of gentrification and displacement are characterised. This novel comparison of United States local government analyses of gentrification provides insight as modelling moves from theory to practice.
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