Anderson and Plaut on Implicit Racial Bias and Residential Racial Segregation

Michelle Wilde Anderson (Cal-Berkeley) and Victoria Plaut (Cal-Berkeley) have posted Property Law: Implicit Bias and the Resilience of Spatial Colorlines, a chapter in Implicit Racial Bias Across the Law (forthcoming 2011, Cambridge U. Press, Levinson & Smith, eds). Here's the abstract:

Subjectivity and discretion exert tremendous influence over property and our built environment. From members of a city council to planning commissioners, from bank actuaries to developers, from tax assessors to neighbors, individuals constantly and silently make consequential judgments. How much is a home worth? How trustworthy is a credit-seeker? Is a proposed development, land use, or landowner suitable for this community? Is this neighborhood safe? Current research in psychology can tell us much about how we make such decisions and how the race of parties involved can shape those outcomes. This chapter investigates the application of unconscious bias research to property and land use decisions that affect where people live, work, shop, and travel - decisions that in turn affect household wealth, educational opportunity, health, and personal safety.

Jim K.