The hypothesis of neighborhood stigma predicts that individuals who reside in areas known for high crime, poverty, disorder, and/or racial isolation embody the negative characteristics attributed to their communities and experience suspicion and mistrust in their interactions with strangers. This article provides an experimental test of whether neighborhood stigma affects individuals in one domain of social life: economic transactions. To evaluate the neighborhood stigma hypothesis, this study adopts an audit design in a locally organized, online classified market, using advertisements for used iPhones and randomly manipulating the neighborhood of the seller. The primary outcome under study is the number of responses generated by sellers from disadvantaged relative to advantaged neighborhoods. Advertisements from disadvantaged neighborhoods received significantly fewer responses than advertisements from advantaged neighborhoods. Results provide robust evidence that individuals from disadvantaged neighborhoods bear a stigma that influences their prospects in economic exchanges. The stigma is greater for advertisements originating from disadvantaged neighborhoods where the majority of residents are black. This evidence reveals that residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood not only affects individuals through mechanisms involving economic resources, institutional quality, and social networks but also affects residents through the perceptions of others.ities in the United States are characterized by high levels of racial segregation and by concentrated pockets of poverty and of affluence (1, 2). The stratification of American neighborhoods means that individuals living in disadvantaged communities are exposed to fewer economic opportunities, lower quality institutions, greater levels of crime and environmental pollution, and less advantaged social networks (3-6). However, extreme neighborhood inequality may also affect individuals through processes of association, perception, and stigma.The hypothesis of neighborhood stigma predicts that individuals who reside in areas known for high crime, poverty, disorder, and/or racial isolation embody the negative characteristics attributed to their communities, and experience suspicion and mistrust in their interactions with strangers when their neighborhood of residence is revealed (7-11). Similar to other forms of stereotype, the consequences of neighborhood stigma arise when negative perceptions of a place are attached to individuals, leading to systematic disapproval, discrimination, and/or exclusion (12, 13). Assumptions about residents from disadvantaged neighborhoods could have consequences in the form of lost job opportunities, suspicion by law enforcement, or mistrust in market transactions. Through all of these pathways, the stigma of place may be an important mechanism through which neighborhood segregation reinforces social inequality (5,(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Despite the strong theoretical support for this concept, no previous studies have estimated the effect...
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.
Sociology must worry less about theoretical innovation and more about empirical description.
Housing scholars stress the importance of the information environment in shaping housing search behavior and outcomes. Rental listings have increasingly moved online over the past two decades and, in turn, online platforms like Craigslist are now central to the search process. Do these technology platforms serve as information equalizers or do they reflect traditional information inequalities that correlate with neighborhood sociodemographics? We synthesize and extend analyses of millions of US Craigslist rental listings and find they supply significantly different volumes, quality, and types of information in different communities. Technology platforms have the potential to broaden, diversify, and equalize housing search information, but they rely on landlord behavior and, in turn, likely will not reach this potential without a significant redesign or policy intervention. Smart cities advocates hoping to build better cities through technology must critically interrogate technology platforms and big data for systematic biases.
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