In my city, and I assume many others, there's an informal landlord's group that shares lists of problem tenants to avoid renting to. While problematic, I wonder if it's made any impact.
In general as a tenant you can only get away with not paying rent once (until eviction happens, no one will ever rent to you again without federal or state assurances), and as a landlord you will only skip the credit report requirement once (because your first tenant is going to be a deadbeat who screw’s you).
When the problem is lower class people are playing music too loud, the cops will solve it one way or another.