A new 天美影视传媒 study of thousands of local rental ads finds a pattern of 鈥渞acialized language鈥� that can perpetuate neighborhood segregation, using specific terms to describe apartments in different areas of town.

Terms like 鈥渃onvenient鈥� and 鈥渟afe and secure鈥� are more common in neighborhoods with a greater proportion of people of color, while 鈥渧intage鈥� and 鈥渃lassic鈥� are more popular in predominantly white neighborhoods.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e looking at racial segregation, we all make housing choices, and those choices we make affect segregation. We should know if we鈥檙e making choices based on racialized discourse,鈥� said , a graduate student at the UW and lead author of the study. 鈥淎 racialized society can be perpetuated through means that aren鈥檛 clearly conscious.鈥�

The findings don鈥檛 mean the ads are overtly, or even intentionally, racist, Kennedy said. Rather, words and phrases 鈥� certain terms common to some neighborhoods, and certain terms for others 鈥� can reinforce perceptions of neighborhoods, influence where people choose to live, and ultimately, create areas of the city where some racial and ethnic groups are more prevalent than others.

The published Aug. 3 in the journal Social Forces.

Past research has documented segregation in Seattle, and the legacy of redlining in some neighborhoods. Through the mid-20^th century, real estate and rental ads identified properties in 鈥渞estricted鈥� areas 鈥� those with covenants designed to keep out people of color. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prevented such discrimination in housing, and by 1970, overtly race-related language in local housing ads had essentially disappeared. But by then, as is the case , , and less-explicit forms of discrimination continued.

Given Seattle鈥檚 economic and population growth in recent years, Kennedy wanted to examine the factors that could sustain some of the de facto segregation that exists today. Seattle has grown by , and people new to the area may have little information about specific neighborhoods.

UW sociologist Kyle Crowder has written about how people tend to move to neighborhoods where there are others 鈥渓ike鈥� them, often because others in their social networks live there or recommend them. Combined with the legacy of racial segregation, this perpetuates neighborhoods where predominantly white people live and shop, neighborhoods where Black people tend to live and shop, and so on.

For this study, Kennedy and the research team started with more than 400,000 Craigslist ads for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area between March 2017 and September 2018. Removing duplicate ads cut the database to about 45,000 from nearly 850 census tracts; data from the Census Bureau鈥檚 American Community Survey established the racial and ethnic breakdown of each tract.

Kennedy used an approach called topic modeling to recognize groups of words appearing together, and categorized those groups into 40 topics. For example, the topic 鈥渧intage charm鈥� typically included words like 鈥渧intage,鈥� 鈥渃lassic鈥� and brick.鈥� The topic of 鈥渃onvenience and ease鈥� included terms such as 鈥渆asy,鈥� 鈥渃onvenient,鈥� 鈥渓ocation鈥� and 鈥渙pen.鈥�

Kennedy was then able to spot patterns between the terms in the ads, and the neighborhoods the ads were tied to.

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Topics such as 鈥渧intage charm鈥� and those related to walkability and surrounding amenities were associated more frequently with predominantly white neighborhoods in Seattle, such as Wallingford and Queen Anne. In neighborhoods with a greater proportion of people of color, such as Seattle鈥檚 Northgate and in Kent, topics like 鈥渟afe and friendly鈥� and those pertaining to drive times and bus access were common. In particular, terms related to security 鈥� 鈥渟afety,鈥� 鈥渟ecure,鈥� 鈥渃ontrolled,鈥� 鈥渃ourtesy patrol鈥� 鈥� were associated more frequently with neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Black residents.

鈥淭hese associations are sadly aligned with what we know about racial stereotypes in the United States,鈥� Kennedy said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e worried that, in addition to influencing housing patterns, that these ads could also be a site for the reproduction of racial stereotypes.鈥�

A general theme emerged, Kennedy said: Listings in predominantly white neighborhoods highlighted history, culture and community. In neighborhoods that had a greater proportion of people of color, listings focused more often on features that separate the property from its surroundings, or simply on transportation out of the area.

The goal of rental ads, of course, is to occupy the unit, Kennedy said, so listings try to highlight what will draw a tenant; reversing perceptions and patterns requires a more systemic effort to discourage segregation. The study notes how the Chicago suburb of Oak Park to integrating its community by promoting a variety of neighborhoods and working with real estate agents, landlords and prospective tenants on changing perceptions.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation. Co-authors were , a doctoral student in linguistics at the UW; Chris Hess of Cornell University; and Sarah Chasins of the University of California, Berkeley.

For more information, contact Kennedy at ikennedy@uw.edu.

Think about the last time you looked for a new apartment or house.

Maybe you asked your friends or colleagues about where they lived. You thought about your route to work, or that neighborhood you always drive through on your way to your kid’s soccer practice.

Many of these places were familiar to you, whether from an occasional visit or part of a daily routine. And if you’re like most people, you ultimately moved to a neighborhood you knew about first- or secondhand.

That decision helped, however unintentionally, to cement patterns of residential segregation, says , a 天美影视传媒 professor of sociology and co-author of “,” published in January by the Russell Sage Foundation. In the book, Crowder and his co-author, Maria Krysan of the University of Illinois at Chicago, focus on Chicago neighborhoods, the opinions of residents and the past and present policies that shape the city — put simply, a city known for its white neighborhoods on the north side, and black neighborhoods on the south and west.

Chicago, Crowder and Krysan point out, has some characteristics particularly endemic to large, industrial metropolises that grew in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. But relatively newer cities like Seattle don’t escape the economic, political and social forces that create and maintain segregation, Crowder said. Nor is addressing them an easy fix.

What makes this book different from other research on neighborhood segregation?

KC: For decades, we’ve been focused on fairly simplistic explanations for why cities remain so segregated: preferences, discrimination and economics. We’re not saying those forces are unimportant. We’re saying let’s think about other social forces that are at play here.

Use the example of African-Americans and whites, because they’re the most segregated from each other: One traditional theory is that African-Americans and whites live in separate residential spaces because they have different access to economic resources. Whites have higher levels of education, on average, more income, more wealth than do African-Americans, and so whites are better able to buy themselves into higher-quality neighborhoods. This is contradicted by the fact that African-Americans, even with high levels of income and wealth, tend to be segregated from high-income whites.

Another argument is preferences, that blacks choose to live in black neighborhoods, and whites choose to live in white neighborhoods. There’s some evidence to say that especially among whites there is a pretty strong aversion to living around high concentrations of people of color, although that has softened over time. When we ask people about their willingness to live in diverse neighborhoods, there seems to be a growing appreciation of doing so, but it doesn’t quite match the residential outcomes.

The third argument is that for African-Americans, even when they can afford to live in more integrated spaces and have preference to do so, they still don’t end up in those kinds of places, because they’re discriminated against. There are classic examples of this, of landlords who won’t rent to “your kind” or who claim the apartment is rented, that kind of thing.聽 But it’s hard to measure discrimination, and the kinds of discrimination that pervade today are often quite subtle.

There are all kinds of forces that build residential segregation, but once it’s entrenched in a city, it tends to take on a life of its own and perpetuate itself over generations and generations, thanks to an underappreciated set of social processes.

What are the social forces in people’s lives, and how do they influence where we live?

People’s daily rounds are really shaped by residential segregation: where we go to work and shop, where we go to church, and where our kids go to school. White folks tend to do those things in one area of the city, and African-Americans tend to do those things in another area of the city, Latinos in a separate area, and so on. Those daily activities mean we all have exposure to different sets of neighborhoods, and when it comes time to search for housing, we tend to search for housing in places that we know.

The other big thing here is our social networks. We rely heavily on our social networks to gain knowledge of residential opportunities. If my social network is circumscribed, if my network is made up of mostly white folks, then I get information about places where white folks live. Residential segregation creates racially circumscribed lives that then translate to racially circumscribed search processes that then perpetuate residential segregation.

Your book is set in Chicago. How is Seattle similar or different?

African-Americans moved to cities like Chicago during the to take advantage of industrial jobs. During that time, there was also incredible racial strife and a variety of strategies 鈥� from protective covenants and redlining to financing the suburbanization of white populations 鈥� were enacted to segregate the growing black population from whites in these metropolitan areas. Even after you make practices like redlining and protective covenants illegal, white neighborhoods still have reputations for being racially unfriendly, and other areas have reputations for being the black areas of the city. People’s daily lives and residential experiences are still ordered by what happened decades ago.

In Seattle, segregation has declined since the 1970s. There’s still a pronounced, moderate level of segregation, though there’s more integration among nonwhite groups than in many cities. So what’s unique about Seattle that’s led to this higher-than-average level of integration? Two things: First, it鈥檚 been a place that’s grown rapidly, where newcomers settle into neighborhoods that in the past would have been defined as not for white folks. This brings up issues of gentrification and displacement and segregation, but it also leads at least temporarily to a higher level of integration. The other thing is that Seattle has less well-entrenched notions of what our neighborhoods are. In Chicago, if you named a neighborhood on the South Side, someone may never have been there, but they will tell you a million things about what that neighborhood is like based on what they think they know. Seattle has been such a growing, dynamic, changing place that I think the definitions and perceptions are a bit softer. We have a population that is more likely to explore residential spaces outside of the ones they’ve experienced.

You talk about the proactive ways the King County Housing Authority is approaching residential segregation.

The King County Housing Authority and other housing authorities tend to be great about moving voucher recipients into “high-opportunity” neighborhoods — places with jobs, higher-quality schools and accessible transit. King County’s mobility specialists talk with voucher recipients about their residential needs and goals and encourage them to think more broadly about all the places that might fit those needs. If you say, “here’s a voucher, good luck,” people will rely heavily on their social networks and on places they already know, which is likely to help perpetuate segregation.

At the end of the Obama administration, there was a concerted effort to make sure that communities were taking steps to foster integration, and many had started to think about creating a variety of housing, and reaching out to populations that might not normally have contact with a particular area of the city. It’s clear now that there’s not going to be a whole lot of help from the federal government on this, so states and municipalities are going to have to take the lead. There are strong networks of governors and mayors who are starting to come together and learn from each other in the area of climate change; hopefully it will start to happen in terms of housing affordability and integration.

It’s easy to think about neighborhoods in the abstract. Neighborhoods differ in terms of racial composition, quality of housing, schools and the level of crime, and we need to address some of those structural, political and economic forces that have led to disinvestment in African- American and Latino neighborhoods in most metropolitan areas.

We need to invest in those neighborhoods so they are good neighborhoods for everybody 鈥� good for the people who live there, and good for the people who might think about living there.

There is little debate over the link between air pollution and the human respiratory system: Research shows that dirty air and aggravate various lung diseases. Other potential effects are being investigated, too, as scientists examine connections between toxic air and , and .

Now add to that list psychological distress, which 天美影视传媒 researchers have found is also associated with air pollution. The higher the level of particulates in the air, the UW-led study showed, the greater the impact on mental health.

The , published in the November issue of Health & Place, is believed to be the first to use a nationally representative survey pool, cross-referenced with pollution data at the census block level, to evaluate the connection between toxic air and mental health.

“This is really setting out a new trajectory around the health effects of air pollution,” said , an assistant professor of epidemiology in the UW School of Public Health. “The effects of air pollution on cardiovascular health and lung diseases like asthma are well established, but this area of brain health is a newer area of research.”

Where a person lives can make a big difference to health and quality of life. Scientists have identified “social determinants” of physical and mental well-being, such as at local grocers, or .

Air pollution, too, has been associated with behavior changes 鈥� , for instance, or 鈥� that to psychological distress or social isolation.

The UW study looked for a direct connection between toxic air and mental health, relying on some 6,000 respondents from a larger, national, longitudinal study, the . Researchers then merged an air pollution database with records corresponding to the neighborhoods of each of the 6,000 survey participants. The team zeroed in on measurements of , a substance produced by car engines, fireplaces and wood stoves, and power plants fueled by coal or natural gas. 聽Fine particulate matter (particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter) is easily inhaled, can be absorbed into the bloodstream and is considered of greater risk than larger particles. (To picture just how small fine particulate matter is, consider this: The average human hair is 70 micrometers in diameter.)

The for fine particulates, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is 12 micrograms per cubic meter. Between 1999 and 2011, the time frame examined in the UW study, survey respondents lived in neighborhoods where fine particulates measured anywhere from 2.16 to 24.23 micrograms per cubic meter, with an average level of 11.34.

The survey questions relevant to the UW study gauged participants’ feelings of sadness, nervousness, hopelessness and the like and were scored with a scale that assesses psychological distress.

The UW study found that the risk of psychological distress increased alongside the amount of fine particulate matter in the air. For example, in areas with high levels of pollution (21 micrograms per cubic meter), psychological distress scores were 17 percent higher than in areas with low levels of pollution (5 micrograms per cubic meter). Another finding: Every increase in pollution of 5 micrograms per cubic meter had the same effect as a 1.5-year loss in education.

Researchers controlled for other physical, behavioral and socioeconomic factors that can influence mental health, such as chronic health conditions, unemployment and excessive drinking.

But some patterns emerged that warrant more study, explained primary author , a graduate student in the Department of Sociology. When the data are broken down by race and gender, black men and white women show the most significant correlation between air pollution and psychological distress: The level of distress among black men, for instance, in areas of high pollution, is 34 percent greater than that of white men, and 55 percent greater than that of Latino men. A noticeable trend among white women is the substantial increase in distress 鈥� 39 percent 鈥� as pollution levels rise from low to high.

Precisely why air pollution impacts mental health, especially among specific populations, was beyond the scope of the study, Sass said. But that’s what makes further research important.

“Our society is segregated and stratified, which places an unnecessary burden on some groups,” Sass said. “Even moderate levels can be detrimental to health.”

Air pollution, however, is something that can be mitigated, Hajat said, and in the United States. It’s a health problem with a clear, actionable solution.

But it requires the political will to continue to regulate air quality, Sass added.

“We shouldn’t think of this as a problem that has been solved,” she said. “There is a lot to be said for having federal guidelines that are rigorously enforced and continually updated. The ability of communities to have clean air will be impacted with more lax regulation.”

Other authors on the study were professor , and graduate student , both of the UW Department of Sociology; Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine; and David Takeuchi of the Boston College School of Social Work.

The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and supported by UW鈥檚 Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.

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For more information, contact Sass at vsass@uw.edu.

Grant numbers: R01 HD078501, R24 HD042828, ROO ES023498

The project is a sizeable challenge: Students will pour over census and public health data, interview residents, photograph neighborhoods and summarize their findings in a report. The end result will help officials in Auburn, Washington, know how to best engage and communicate with the culturally diverse populations in the city.

The neighborhoods endeavor is one of 10 initial projects in the UW’s inaugural program, which to advance the city’s goals for livability and sustainability. The idea is to give students real-world experiences while addressing current needs identified by city leaders.

The program will formally celebrate the start of its first year at 10 a.m. Oct. 6 at w菨色菨b蕯altx史 鈥� Intellectual House on the UW’s campus in a open to all. Professors leading Livable City Year courses this fall will talk about their projects, followed by a time for Q&A.

“My students are really excited to be part of a larger initiative,” said , a UW assistant professor of health services who is teaching the class that will profile each Auburn neighborhood.

“They get to do something they really know will be valued and practice their professional skills to engage with each community.”

The new program is a cross-university collaboration led by faculty directors with the Department of Urban Design and Planning and with the School of Public Health, in collaboration with and , and with foundational support from the and . The program is also working with the nonprofit organization .

The projects in Auburn this fall include addressing homelessness issues, building awareness of city values, understanding wastewater discharge, managing pet waste and evaluating the success of a buy-local program. UW undergraduate and graduate students in six different courses spanning environmental and public health, sociology, and urban design and planning will deliver reports and recommendations to city leadership at the end of the quarter.

Sociology professor is tackling three separate projects on homelessness in Auburn with his upper-level undergraduate course on cities and neighborhood dynamics. One will assess and prioritize Auburn’s plans for addressing homelessness, and another will develop innovative strategies for understanding the size, change and distribution of the city’s homeless population.

A third project will focus on finding incentives to maintain the city’s relatively affordable older homes in the midst of expensive residential expansion.

“These are neat projects in that they allow students to work on things that are practically important, but there’s also, in a way, a ‘dream big’ element,” Crowder said. “There are great tools and resources at this university, so the more we can bring those to the community, the better off everyone will be.”

Several projects from this quarter will continue with Auburn for the rest of the academic year, and a half dozen new ones will begin winter and spring quarters. Other cities around Washington can apply to work with the UW through the Livable City Year program in future years.

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For more information, contact Livable City Year program manager Jennifer Davison at jnfrdvsn@uw.edu or 206-240-6903.