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Scott Markley

@snmarkley.bsky.social
943 followers 271 following 132 posts

Studying racially uneven sub/urban development with GIS, maps, #rstats, #rspatial scottnmarkley.github.io

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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My chapter on "data slop" with Diana Drogaris is out today in this excellent, open access collection! Check it out here: bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/edcollchap-o... Hats off to the Data Stories team for putting this timely and important book together!
bristoluniversitypressdigital.com
9: Zoning and municipal data brokers: towards a political economy of ‘data slop’
A budding crop of PropTech entrepreneurs purporting to offer ‘AI-driven zoning analysis’, ‘model-based algorithms’ and ‘real estate intelligence platforms’ to provide standardised zoning data has surf...
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Rob Kitchin @robkitchin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Publication day. The Data Politics of Housing, Property and Planning, edited by Danielle Hynes, Rob Kitchin and Samuel Mutter. Published by Policy Press. Open access download at: policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-data-pol...
policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk
The Data Politics of Housing, Property and Planning
The Data Politics of Housing, Property and Planning; This pioneering book critically examines how governments, industry and civil society use housing, property and planning data, offering a vital refl...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Stop using the Wharton Index. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
It's time to Retire the Wharton Index
Empirical research on land use regulation has a credibility problem. For two decades, studies linking regulation to housing costs, residential segregation, and
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Love to see this. One of my biggest frustrations with the Wharton Index over the years--and one motivation for taking on this project--is that it was restricting my ability to see what was plainly in front of me. Once you dispense with it, all sorts of things start to make more sense!
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 02/09/2026
This finding from NZA ⏬ on issues with some national zoning indices is useful; it helps explain my findings earlier this summer (free pre-print: www.urban.org/research/pub...), which show that infill housing supply growth has been faster in liberal places—the opposite of what Wharton would predict.
tandfonline.com
The Paradox of Housing Supply Growth: Conservative Sprawl and Liberal Infill in the 21st-Century United States
Housing affordability is declining in the United States. To explain this phenomenon, many scholars and policymakers point to slowing construction, which they argue is particularly troublesome in co...
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 02/09/2026
The National Zoning Atlas team is out with a blockbuster paper identifying major flaws with the Wharton Index, which has historically been the tool used by economists to make claims about zoning (e.g. Glaeser & Gyourko's 2002 paper on zoning & affordability, with >1200 citations, is based on it...)
papers.ssrn.com
It's time to retire the Wharton Index
Empirical research on land use regulation has a credibility problem. For two decades, studies linking regulation to housing costs, residential segregation, and
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Dan Immergluck @danimmergluck.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
So many papers I have reviewed rely on the Wharton Land Use Regulatory Index as a measure of #zoning restrictiveness. I saw @snmarkley.bsky.social present this paper at the Urban Affairs Association this spring. It is certainly damning (of the index). It’s time to stop using it.
papers.ssrn.com
It's time to retire the Wharton Index
Empirical research on land use regulation has a credibility problem. For two decades, studies linking regulation to housing costs, residential segregation, and
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Thanks Dan! So many assumptions permeating the housing literature are based on findings built from this single reductive metric. Enough is enough!
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Tony Zombie-ano 🎃 @tonydamiano.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Newly published housing research! We find that the effects of new construction on rents varies by the quality of the existing housing. In the first 5 years rents went up 4.4% near low quality buildings and went down 1.7% near high quality buildings (1/x) 🧵 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Build baby build? Housing submarkets and the effects of new
construction on existing rents

Anthony Damiano and Chris Frenier
aUniversity of Minnesota; bHealth Care Cost Institute
ABSTRACT
There is vigorous debate among scholars, and activists about the role that new market-rate apartments play in alleviating housing affordability issues at the neighborhood level. This study evaluates how new large (>50 units)
market-rate apartment buildings affect rents in nearby buildings. In contrast to other recent work, we posit that the effects of new construction may vary by the quality of existing housing. We test this hypothesis by using a panel of building-level rents from Minneapolis, Minnesota, observed between 2000
and 2018. While we find no effect of new high-end housing on the market overall, we find countervailing effects of new construction on different parts of the rental market when broken out separately. We find that lower-priced rental housing close to new construction had rents 4.4% higher than those in
other low-quality buildings farther away in the first 5 years after new construction. In contrast, we find that new construction had the opposite effect on higher-priced housing: rents were 1.7% lower near new construction. This study reiterates the importance of housing submarket theory and how focusing solely on average effects of housing interventions may miss important and nuanced effects across different parts of the market.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
This man is from St Simons and is talking about “we.” They couldn’t find anyone within 200 miles to put their name on this
Buddy Carter oped in AJC asking for more ICE agents in Atlanta
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Great! About time!
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Isaac Chotiner @ichotiner.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
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Out of Context Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 🎃 @ooccouchgags.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Happy New Year's!
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
The appendix articles are both freely available for download. If you’d like access to another, please let me know, and I’d be happy to share!
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Appendix 2: “Housing, socioeconomic, and racial data in consistent neighborhood geometries for 65 cities mapped by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, 1940 – 2019” 🔗 osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io
OSF
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Appendix 1: With Steve Holloway, Taylor Hafley, and Mathew Hauer. “Housing unit and urbanization estimates for the continental U.S. in consistent tract boundaries, 1940 – 2019” 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Housing unit and urbanization estimates for the continental U.S. in consistent tract boundaries, 1940–2019 - Scientific Data
Measurement(s) human dwelling Technology Type(s) Geographic Information System Factor Type(s) housing units • urbanization Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Sample Char...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Chapter 6: With Steve Holloway. “Underestimating racism? Decoupling race and redlining” 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2469...
doi.org
Underestimating Racism? Decoupling Race and Redlining
A rapidly expanding body of research has sought to connect the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) so-called redlining maps to a wide array of present-day social injustices. The assertion is tha...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Chapter 5: With Anne Bonds. “Race and value in space and time: a critical narrative cartography of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s area descriptions” 🔗https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2025.2492218
tandfonline.com
Race and value in space and time: a critical narrative cartography of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation's Area Descriptions
The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) Residential Security maps were created in the late 1930s to capture the ostensible investment risk posed by urban neighborhood characteristics. To generat...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Chapter 4: “Tabulating Home Owners’ Loan Corporation area description sheet data” 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Chapter 3: “Federal ‘redlining’ maps: a critical reappraisal” 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Federal ‘redlining’ maps: A critical reappraisal - Scott Markley, 2024
In the past decade, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) so-called ‘redlining’ maps have gone from a niche corner of urban historical scholarship to the c...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Chapter 2: “Planning spatial obsolescence: residential segregation and the racist theory of (anti-)value” 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
All chapters and appendices other than the Intro & Conclusion are also available as articles, and I think they read better in this format. I don’t have a book to promote, but if you’d like to get a sense of how it may have looked, here are my dissertation chapters as articles in order in one place:
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
The dissertation itself is titled *Planning Spatial Obsolescence: Racial Capitalism, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, and the Production of Racialized Devaluation*, and the whole thing is fully available on Proquest. 🔗 www.proquest.com/openview/7dc...
proquest.com
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Glad to see the last remaining chapter of my dissertation officially out now in *Urban Geography*! 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Race and value in space and time: a critical narrative cartography of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation's Area Descriptions
The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) Residential Security maps were created in the late 1930s to capture the ostensible investment risk posed by urban neighborhood characteristics. To generat...
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Rob Kitchin @robkitchin.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Authoritarianism in the digital age by @kylzjarrett.bsky.social, @robkitchin.bsky.social, Jing Hiah and @steelecat717.bsky.social in @dialoguesdigsoc.bsky.social. Intro to special issue with 48 papers on the topic. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Authoritarianism in the digital age - Kylie Jarrett, Rob Kitchin, Jing Hiah, Catherine Knight Steele, 2025
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
A new study shows rents for low-wage Atlanta tenants are rising *9 times* faster than for wealthy renters. The affordability crisis is everywhere: housing, healthcare, food, electricity, survival itself. And the party that won big on "affordability" last week just turned around and surrendered it.
ajc.com
Study: Rents for low-wage Atlantans rose 9 times faster than for high earners
Rents for suburban workforce housing in the metro Atlanta region increased by almost 20%, while rents for luxury units increased by 2%, a study said.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Everyone hates Georgia Power so much lol
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Mike Glass @m-r-glass.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Today is the official publication day for CRACKED FOUNDATIONS!! 🏠🥳🎉 For the next month, Penn is offering a discount of 40% off using the code UHA25. Which brings the price down to $20.97. A screaming deal! www.pennpress.org/978151282822...
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Glad to see this new piece on quantification, counter-data, "evidence," and what we call "authoritarian counting" out now in @dialoguesdigsoc.bsky.social with @itspangler.bsky.social, @emtl.bsky.social, and @marxist.af! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
More on the 608 program here: academic.oup.com/jah/article/...
academic.oup.com
Mortgaging Out: Fha Credit Policy, Segregated Rental Housing, and the Remaking of Metropolitan America
On a hot afternoon in July 1954, Fred C. Trump sat as a witness before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. He had been subpoenaed for an investig
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Fantastic new historical mapping resource on the FHA's Section 608 multifamily rental housing program from @brentcebul.bsky.social, Mike Glass, and their team. Complete with downloadable data! Incredible work buildinginequality.us
buildinginequality.us
Building Inequality
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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Mike Glass and I argue for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social that we’ve tried the #abundance incentive-based approach to housing crises before. But lack of oversight + incentives produced fraud, profiteering, and inflated rents -- and the Trump family fortune. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/add...
phenomenalworld.org
Adding Value | Phenomenal World
Mortgage insurance has traditionally been the method the federal government has used to induce investment in owner-occupied housing. But for multifamily rentals, the history of mortgage-insurance prog...
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Sam Miller @sammillerbb.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
this one
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Leventhal Map & Education Center @bplmaps.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
An update on the future of the Allmaps project: Sadly, on April 17, 2025, we learned that the federal government terminated many NEH grants, including ours. The notification stated that our grant’s termination was “necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government.”
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Why are all these people named Brian Johnson
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Voters: can you pay 50 cents more in taxes to pay for vegetables for children and agree not to defraud the elderly on their electrical bills Wall Street Guy: OH LIKE THE KILLING FIELDS?!?! LIKE THE KHMER ROUGE?!?!
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jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 25/06/2025
crying, screaming, throwing up
"Hearing that real estate and business leaders in New York City are convening a 2 pm call to discuss The Zohran Situation"
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
he's right and he's right to say it
screenshot of a Facebook post by Corey Robin, which says: "By the way, did you all notice how Zohran made affordability a central issue of his campaign without selling out trans kids or shitting on immigrants? Might be some lessons there. Just a thought."
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
As always, I am happy to share the pdf if you do not have access. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
We hope this intervention will help spark future deep dives into HOLC’s Area Descriptions, which really do provide a unique window into the development of what Charles Abrams called the "racist theory of value."
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Moreover, we find that these Area Descriptions are rife with contradictory notions of what makes a place valuable. E.g., in Atlanta, HOLC's appraisers grade affluent Black neighborhoods low but nonetheless recommend investment.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Curiously, while the value narratives in these cities positioned Black residential presence as sign and source of obsolescence, respectively, they did not seem to anticipate Black population growth or mobility at all.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Temporal Narratives—prevalent in Milwaukee—situated neighborhoods in time, placing them along a past and projected value trajectory. Proximity Narratives—prevalent in Atlanta—situated neighborhoods in space, projecting value based on distance to certain dis/amenities, including racial composition.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Focusing on Milwaukee and Atlanta, we identify two cartographic narrative types present in the Area Descriptions: Temporal Narratives and Proximity Narratives.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
In that way, this mapping program was less about directly steering property investment decisions and more about internal data gathering and assessment. We thus consider this mapping program as an early example of spatial data science in practice.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
These detailed field notes provide an in-depth look into how real estate capital and the state were constructing a dynamic notion of neighborhood value that relied on estimated racial and class trajectories (though not always in consistent ways across places).
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
While HOLC’s colorful “redlining” maps from the 1930s have gotten a lot of attention in the last decade, we shift the focus to a much less explored component of the City Survey program: the Area Descriptions.
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Scott Markley @snmarkley.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
📣 The last article from my dissertation is out! In this piece, coauthor Anne Bonds and I dive deep into the contents of HOLC’s Area Description sheets. 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
HOLC Area Description for neighborhood D5 in Milwaukee, WisconsinHOLC map for Milwaukee, WisconsinHOLC map for Atlanta, Georgia
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
theonion.com/this-war-wil...
This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t
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