scholarly journals Online rental housing market representation and the digital reproduction of urban inequality

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Boeing
Keyword(s):  
Housing Market ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Search Costs ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Urban Inequality ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Housing Search ◽  
Rental Housing Market

As the rental housing market moves online, the internet offers divergent possible futures: either the promise of more-equal access to information for previously marginalized homeseekers, or a reproduction of longstanding information inequalities. Biases in online listings’ representativeness could impact different communities’ access to housing search information, reinforcing traditional information segregation patterns through a digital divide. They could also circumscribe housing practitioners’ and researchers’ ability to draw broad market insights from listings to understand rental supply and affordability. This study examines millions of Craigslist rental listings across the USA and finds that they spatially concentrate and overrepresent whiter, wealthier, and better-educated communities. Other significant demographic differences exist in age, language, college enrollment, rent, poverty rate, and household size. Most cities’ online housing markets are digitally segregated by race and class, and we discuss various implications for residential mobility, community legibility, gentrification, housing voucher utilization, and automated monitoring and analytics in the smart cities paradigm. While Craigslist contains valuable crowdsourced data to better understand affordability and available rental supply in real time, it does not evenly represent all market segments. The internet promises information democratization, and online listings can reduce housing search costs and increase choice sets. However, technology access/preferences and information channel segregation can concentrate such information-broadcasting benefits in already-advantaged communities, reproducing traditional inequalities and reinforcing residential sorting and segregation dynamics. Technology platforms like Craigslist construct new institutions with the power to shape spatial economies, human interactions, and planners’ ability to monitor and respond to urban challenges.

scholarly journals Online Rental Housing Market Representation and the Digital Reproduction of Urban Inequality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Boeing
Keyword(s):  
Housing Market ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Search Costs ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Urban Inequality ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Housing Search ◽  
Rental Housing Market

As the rental housing market moves online, the Internet offers divergent possible futures: either the promise of more-equal access to information for previously marginalized homeseekers, or a reproduction of longstanding information inequalities. Biases in online listings' representativeness could impact different communities' access to housing search information, reinforcing traditional information segregation patterns through a digital divide. They could also circumscribe housing practitioners' and researchers' ability to draw broad market insights from listings to understand rental supply and affordability. This study examines millions of Craigslist rental listings across the US and finds that they spatially concentrate and over-represent whiter, wealthier, and better-educated communities. Other significant demographic differences exist in age, language, college enrollment, rent, poverty rate, and household size. Most cities' online housing markets are digitally segregated by race and class, and we discuss various implications for residential mobility, community legibility, gentrification, housing voucher utilization, and automated monitoring and analytics in the smart cities paradigm. While Craigslist contains valuable crowdsourced data to better understand affordability and available rental supply in real-time, it does not evenly represent all market segments. The Internet promises information democratization, and online listings can reduce housing search costs and increase choice sets. However, technology access/preferences and information channel segregation can concentrate such information-broadcasting benefits in already-advantaged communities, reproducing traditional inequalities and reinforcing residential sorting and segregation dynamics. Technology platforms like Craigslist construct new institutions with the power to shape spatial economies, human interactions, and planners' ability to monitor and respond to urban challenges.

The Costs of Seeking Shelter for Renters With Discrediting Background Records

2021 ◽  
pp. 153568412110124
Author(s):  
Anna Reosti
Keyword(s):  
Financial Burden ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Screening Process ◽  
Housing Search ◽  
Housing Options ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Rental Housing Market

This study illuminates an understudied pathway through which disadvantage is reproduced in the rental housing market: the housing search, application, and tenant screening process. Using in-depth interviews with 25 housing-seekers with criminal conviction records, past evictions, and damaged credit histories, this article examines the direct role of the rental housing search and application process in reproducing economic precarity and social disadvantage among renters with discrediting background records, beyond delimiting their housing options. Its findings suggest that navigating the housing search from a position of acute market disadvantage comes with significant costs for this population, including the financial burden of repeated application fees and the psychological strains associated with the specter of indefinite housing insecurity. The findings also demonstrate how the housing search process may undermine the willingness of stigmatized renters to contest exploitative or unlawful rental practices by reinforcing awareness of their degraded status in the rental market.

scholarly journals Rental Housing Market in Riga: Price Determinants and Lesson Keys of Helsinki

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-17
Author(s):  
Sindija Balode ◽  
Uldis Kamols
Keyword(s):  
Housing Market ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Shopping Malls ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Price Determinants ◽  
Rent Level ◽  
Rental Housing Market

Abstract The research focuses on the rental housing market in Riga and reveals that among factors that affect the rent level in neighbourhoods of Riga the most are distance from the city centre, neighbourhood safety, quality of housing and transport infrastructure, access to shopping malls, and employment opportunities. The aim of the research is to analyse the housing market in Riga, by putting a special focus on price determinants and lesson keys of Helsinki. Quantitative and qualitative research methods are used in the paper with the biggest contribution being extraction and analysis of data about more than 1800 rental apartments in Riga from the largest Latvian online real estate advertisement platform. Quantitative analysis is based on investigating relationships between average rent levels in different neighbourhoods of Riga and index values of 23 urban environment factors. In addition, the rental housing market in Helsinki is researched, emphasising few guidelines for rental housing market improvements in Riga, such as introducing government subsidies.

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