Searching for housing in the digital age: Neighborhood representation on internet rental housing platforms across space, platform, and metropolitan segregation

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110341
Author(s):  
Chris Hess ◽  
Arthur Acolin ◽  
Rebecca Walter ◽  
Ian Kennedy ◽  
Sarah Chasins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Housing Search ◽  
Rental Markets

Understanding residential mobility, housing affordability, and the geography of neighborhood advantage and disadvantage relies on robust information about housing search processes and housing markets. Existing data about housing markets, especially rental markets, suffer from accuracy issues and a lack of temporal and geographic flexibility. Data collected from online rental platforms that are commonly used can help address these issues and hold considerable promise for better understanding the full distribution of available rental homes. However, realizing this promise requires a careful assessment of potential sources of bias as online rental listing platforms may perpetuate inequalities similar to those found in physical spaces. This paper approaches the production of rental advertisements as a social process driven by both contextual and property level factors. We compare data from two online platforms for the 100 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States to explore inequality in digital rental listing spaces and understand what characteristics are associated with over and underrepresentation of advertisements in certain areas. We find similar associations for socioeconomic measures between platforms and across urban and suburban parts of these metropolitan areas. In contrast, the importance of racial and ethnic composition, as well as broader patterns of segregation, for online representation differs substantially across space and platform. This analysis informs our understanding of how online platforms affect housing search dynamics through their biases and segmentation, and highlights the potential and limits in using the data available on these platforms to produce small area rental estimates.

scholarly journals New Insights into Rental Housing Markets across the United States: Web Scraping and Analyzing Craigslist Rental Listings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Boeing
Keyword(s):  
Census Data ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Single Digit ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Apartment Complexes ◽  
The U.S

Current sources of data on rental housing – such as the census or commercial databases that focus on large apartment complexes – do not reflect recent market activity or the full scope of the U.S. rental market. To address this gap, we collected, cleaned, analyzed, mapped, and visualized 11 million Craigslist rental housing listings. The data reveal fine-grained spatial and temporal patterns within and across metropolitan housing markets in the U.S. We find some metropolitan areas have only single-digit percentages of listings below fair market rent. Nontraditional sources of volunteered geographic information offer planners real-time, local-scale estimates of rent and housing characteristics currently lacking in alternative sources, such as census data.

Millennial ‘YIMBYs’ and boomer ‘NIMBYs’: Generational views on housing affordability in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 003802612091612
Author(s):  
Max Holleran
Keyword(s):  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Market Rate ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Housing Costs

This article examines housing activism in five American cities using interviews with millennial-age housing activists, seeking more apartment development, and baby boomers who are members of neighbourhood groups that oppose growth. Many of the groups supporting growth have banded together under the banner of the ‘Yes in My Backyard’ (YIMBY) movement which seeks fewer zoning laws and pushes for market-rate rental housing. In desirable cities with thriving job opportunities, housing costs are pricing out not only low-income renters but also the middle class. The millennial activists sampled blame baby boomers for the lack of affordable housing because of resistance to higher density construction in neighbourhoods with single-family homes (characterising these people as having a ‘Not in My Backyard’ [NIMBY] mindset). The research shows that boomers and millennials not only disagree over urban growth but also more fundamental questions of what makes a liveable city.

scholarly journals The Unequal Availability of Rental Housing Information Across Neighborhoods

Demography ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Besbris ◽  
Ariela Schachter ◽  
John Kuk
Keyword(s):  
Rental Housing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Search Process ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Census Tract Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Housing Search ◽  
Types Of Information

Abstract As more urban residents find their housing through online search tools, recent research has theorized the potential for online information to transform and equalize the housing search process. Yet, very little is known about what rental housing information is available online. Using a corpus of millions of geocoded Craigslist advertisements for rental housing across the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States merged with census tract–level data from the American Community Survey, we identify and describe the types of information commonly included in listings across different types of neighborhoods. We find that in the online housing market, renters are exposed to fundamentally different types of information depending on the ethnoracial and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhoods where they are searching.

scholarly journals High rises and low-quality shelter: rental housing dynamics in Mathare Valley, Nairobi

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 481-502
Author(s):  
Baraka Mwau ◽  
Alice Sverdlik
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
Single Room ◽  
Rental Markets ◽  
Central Pillar ◽  
Shelter Delivery

Informal rental housing remains a hidden – yet central – pillar of low-cost shelter markets across the global South. The large informal settlement of Mathare Valley illustrates Nairobi’s rapidly changing informal rental housing markets, with the ongoing rise of tenements alongside metal shacks. Informal single-room rental units (shacks and tenements) already house most Nairobi residents in low-quality but highly profitable shelter. This case study describes how multiple exclusions can shape access to rental housing and examines the politics of shelter delivery. We underscore the importance of private rental markets and offer recommendations for inclusive, multi-pronged interventions combining support for rental housing, land governance and infrastructure delivery. Through a better understanding of the myriad actors and dynamics of informal rental housing, it may be possible to develop strategies that serve low-income tenants for whom renting is often the only viable option.

scholarly journals New Insights into Rental Housing Markets across the United States: Web Scraping and Analyzing Craigslist Rental Listings

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Boeing ◽  
Paul Waddell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Single Digit ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Apartment Complexes

Current sources of data on rental housing—such as the census or commercial databases that focus on large apartment complexes—do not reflect recent market activity or the full scope of the US rental market. To address this gap, we collected, cleaned, analyzed, mapped, and visualized eleven million Craigslist rental housing listings. The data reveal fine-grained spatial and temporal patterns within and across metropolitan housing markets in the United States. We find that some metropolitan areas have only single-digit percentages of listings below fair market rent. Nontraditional sources of volunteered geographic information offer planners real-time, local-scale estimates of rent and housing characteristics currently lacking in alternative sources, such as census data.

Determinants of homeownership affordability in Nigeria’s urban housing markets

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chukwuma Christopher Nwuba ◽  
Iche U. Kalu ◽  
John A. Umeh
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Building Cost

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate homeownership affordability in Nigeria’s urban housing market to establish the determinants of households’ affordability outcomes, and the nature of their impact. Design/methodology/approach – The cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of households selected through a stratified random technique across Kaduna State, the study area. The binary logistic regression was used to model the probability of homeownership affordability as a function of specified explanatory variables. Findings – Household income, savings, construction period and education are determinants of homeownership affordability with positive impact. Conversely, household size, cost of land, building cost inflation, current rental housing expenditures, non-housing expenditures and building cost relative to income are determinants of affordability with negative impact. Practical implications – The findings have the potential to provide a framework for formulation of policy measures to improve access to homeownership. Social implications – Delayed access to homeownership places pressure on the rented sector with the potential for rental housing affordability problems. It is a deferment of the actualisation of a strong aspiration which is detrimental to individual and family well-being and stability. Originality/value – The study extends the housing affordability debate to housing markets operating on informal financing where households build rather than buy their homes, an area hitherto not deeply explored. It provides empirical basis for problem-solving on housing affordability and can be a framework for housing policy reforms in Nigeria.

Local Government, Suburban Segregation and Litigation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

1981 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spatial Morphology

A major characteristic of the social and spatial morphology of urban areas in advanced capitalist societies is the residential segregation of different socioeconomic, life style, and ethnic groups. The basic rationale for this segregation is common to most societies, as is its production via the operation of housing markets. In addition, however, each country has its own particular characteristics which accentuate the general processes. One such characteristic in the United States is the nature of the local government system in most States.The aim of this paper is to identify die main features of that system as they apply to the geography of residential separation. The discussion is set within die context of the general processes of American local government and indicates how these have encouraged segregation. The paper then turns to a discussion of the use of the courts and die Fourteendi Amendment to challenge the amalgam of housing market and local government processes, and evaluates the likely outcome of the series of challenges.

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