June 2017

Explaining Differential Treatment of Renters Based on Ethnicity

June 27, 2017 // 0 Comments

By George Galster, Heather MacDonald, and Jacqueline Nelson | In Sydney’s highly competitive rental market, we were hearing anecdotal reports of rent seekers being treated differently according to their ethnic background. We designed an experiment to test whether these anecdotal reports reflected systematic differences in treatment. Using a method widely used in the US and elsewhere, in late 2013 we conducted a ‘paired testing’ experiment, which involved sending renters of Anglo, Indian and Muslim Middle Eastern backgrounds to rental properties advertised on a large real estate website.

Grocery Co-Ops as Governing Institutions

June 15, 2017 // 0 Comments

Grocery cooperatives dot the retail food landscape in cities across the United States. Most of these community-owned stores participate in an alternative food network that supports local farming, organic products and fair-trade goods. Many cooperatives are part of neighborhood commercial corridors. Those with a long tenure may be the most established, and largest, retailers on these corridors. These grocery cooperatives may play a crucial role in corridor governance, helping to convene other merchants to market the corridor, increasing visibility, sales, and corridor stability.

What Do Host City Residents Think about the Olympics?

June 15, 2017 // 0 Comments

Among the most common questions asked about the Olympics by scholars and the public alike is: “Why do cities want to host the Olympics anyway?” Our recent research shifts the question from the rationales proposed by elites to how local residents encounter the Games through its various stages from bidding to post-Games perceptions. Such a perspective is particularly important given the pressure that has emerged from local residents in recent years in bid cities that has frequently scuttled Olympic aspirations.

What 311 Calls (Cannot) Tell Us about Political Engagement

June 2, 2017 // 0 Comments

Let’s say that the last heavy rain left a pothole on your street significantly deeper, or that a streetlight went out right in front of your house.What do you do? Some of us stick to airing a few choice curse words when the car bottoms out or when we can’t see where we dropped those keys… but some call “311”, the non-emergency service request line that now operates in many cities across the US. Read More