I agree with David S. that redlining is not just a matter of laziness. Insurers or lenders with a large base of business do not have adequate contact to do an in-depth analysis of each individual involved in a potential transaction. Redlining creates a quick and dirty way of making a decision -- a kind of efficiency.
Of course, the extra cost and other barriers created by this redlining will mire the people affected deeper into the poverty that caused their statistical ranking in the first place. Teachers make similar calculations. Knowing that a smaller percentage of black children in previous years have done poorly, they have low expectations of these children, ensuring that quite a few of the next generation will do poorly. In both cases, you have people making a decision on a statistical basis, which ensures a certain stability over time to this kind of observation. Because of redlining and teachers' bias, a cycle of poverty will increase. Like most things in the capitalist system, calculations that make sense on an individual basis can be destructive socially. What I have said here does not take into account the fairly common practice of taking advantage of people, by discriminating against people who do not have the statistical characteristics other than race, which could justify the more onerous conditions associated with redlining. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
