Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality

A surprising look at the power and perspectives of city building inspectors as they seek to navigate within the inequalities of today’s housing environment. Though we rarely see them at work, building inspectors have the power to significantly shape our lives through their discretionary decisions. The building inspectors of Chicago are at the heart of sociologist Robin Bartram’s analysis of how individuals affect—or attempt to affect—housing inequality. Using both ethnography and statistical analysis of the building inspectors who respond to complaints about housing conditions in Chicago, Bartram calls attention to the importance of these frontline workers and the power of their agency. In Stacked Decks, she reveals surprising patterns in the judgment calls inspectors make when deciding whom to cite for building code violations. These predominantly white, male inspectors largely recognize that they work within an unequal housing landscape that systematically disadvantages poor people and people of color through redlining, property taxes, and city spending that favor wealthy neighborhoods. While they often act out of a desire to bring justice to this uneven playing field by penalizing those perceived as advantaged, Stacked Decks illustrates the uphill battle inspectors face when trying to change a housing system that works against those with the fewest resources.  

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Stacked Decks Chapter 2. Building Inspections Chapter 3. Rentals and Relative Assessments Chapter 4. Helping Out Homeowners: Changing Faces and Stubborn Realities Chapter 5. Justice Blockers Conclusion. Reshuffling the Deck Acknowledgments Appendix A. Methodology Appendix B. Building Violation Counts Appendix C. Map of Strategic Task Force Inspections Notes References Index

About the Author :
Robin Bartram is assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University.

Review :
"Bartram examines the role of housing inspectors in Chicago, focusing on the judgment calls that inspectors make when deciding whom to cite for building code violations. . . . Her analysis highlights the uphill battle that inspectors face when trying to change a housing system that works against those with the fewest resources." "This volume is a very accessible exploration of how different sources of inequality contribute to unequal housing outcomes by race, income, and social class in US cities. . . In this case study, [Bartram] focuses on the ways in which institutions, laws, decisions, and policies contribute to inequality in the housing market in Chicago. . . This work will likely be of strongest interest to students and scholars of urban sociology, urban studies, urban planning, and possibly public administration. It may also be suitable for general readers looking for publications on housing issues in contemporary US cities." "The heart of Bartram’s book is a rich, nuanced description of her time accompanying Chicago’s building inspectors on their rounds as they responded to complaints called into the city’s Department of Buildings. What she found is not only interesting as ethnological description, but challenges much of the conventional wisdom. . . It should be read by anyone concerned with the reality on the ground in America’s urban neighborhoods. . ." "A fresh look at the work of building inspectors. . . . Stacked Decks is a much-needed examination of how inspectors make sense of complex situations, and how their sense of deservingness influences their judgment." “Bartram’s smart, succinct, and elegantly written book is ostensibly an ethnographic study of building inspectors in Chicago.  In reality, Stacked Decks is a book about power. It uses the daily struggles of building inspectors in Chicago to illuminate a fundamental moral, economic and political problem of our era – the persistence of racialized housing inequality despite the efforts of “frontline” city workers to mitigate it. Distinguishing between individual inspectors’ efforts to mete out justice and the systemic workings of power, Bartram shows us that the former will always be thwarted as long as the latter remains obscure. Stacked Decks is a compact study that raises big questions.  Anyone interested in cities, the built environment, racism, wealth inequality, and the operation of municipal, legal, and financial power will want to read it.” “Stacked Decks is a much needed and methodologically cutting-edge example of the EMERGING sociology of housing, giving us new tools with which to observe that the long-standing structures that made housing opportunity unequal by race are alive and well in new forms. Expertly leveraging ethnography, interviews, archival records on code violations, and 311 calls, Bartram brings into glaring relief the seemingly mundane and invisible dynamics of urban housing, sounding an alarm about housing insecurity, racial equity, and social mobility in America. Stacked Decks is a must read as we as a nation consider how to confront our housing crises.”   “Bartram brilliantly opens a window onto an enormous world of overlooked activity. We see how Chicago building inspectors take ‘stabs at justice’ as they enforce the law. Reading this book compels us to think about how all workers in America understand inequalities and injustices—and how they might use their discretion on the job to right the country’s wrongs.” "In a way, Stacked Decks is promising because it shows that nonsociologists can generate sociological insights when given all the evidence. On the other hand, the book is clear-eyed that systemic changes are needed to ameliorate various forms of spatial inequality. Frontline workers like building inspectors can accurately diagnose the city’s problems even if curing inequality is beyond their power as individual agents of the state. Stacked Decks is therefore a contribution not only to scholarship on neighborhoods, the built environment, and urban inequality, but it also provides a vivid portrait of the tensions that exist for well-meaning bureaucrats. My hope is that more books interrogate the contradictions of a for-profit housing mark as well as Stacked Decks does."