Landlords are less likely to reply to applicants with Black and Latino names
chicagobusiness.com
chicagobusiness.com
Depending on how the study was made, a 3% difference can be within the margin of error.
Also, I don't think that there is a scientific method to discern which name is white sounding, thus making the entire study stand on unscientific grounds.
A common way would be to take a sample of the population of interest, submit the names to them, and have them identify if the names are “white sounding”, “African American sounding”, etc.; its the same way you scientific evaluate population response to anything (like the study question of how people respond to different names.)
There's also the method of identifying names that are statistically more common in one community than others as typical of that community.
There's a few other possible (and still scientific) operationalizations of the trait in question, and while it is important in doing a detailed evaluation of the research to understand which operationalization was used, this doesn't somehow make the question fundamentally unscientific.
That sounds nonsensical to me. Isn't something only worth what people are prepared to pay for it. Appraisers take local past sale prices into account when calculating a valuation. If properties are undervalued by appraisers then they will attract more potential buyers. They will bid the prices for the area up, which will then be reflected in later appraisals unless the appraisers want to go out of business.
In that (more realistic) market, persistent undervaluing based on anything other than the actual house for sale is taking money out of the home owners pocket from the sale. If this happens because of race, then this is obviously an issue.
Well it's an issue for the seller but a boon for the buyer who also would be likely to be from the same race.
That's why we cannot use them to argue a point.
The reality, however, is that apartment / home rental is a devil’s bargain, regardless of status, and gaming the system to catch racist landlords is not unlike using a magnet to pick up nails.
I lucked out in my last apartment building, with a decent landlord and well-kept (owner-managed) property, but that was an exception, even for a gainfully-employed white cis male.
Chicago explicitly sucks for renters, in spite of the landlord-tenant laws on the books; frankly, inexpensive working-class housing doesn’t exist anywhere in urban America.
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