Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality by Robin Bartram. University of Chicago Press, 2022.
This is "a startling look at the power and perspectives of city building inspectors as they navigate unequal housing landscapes." 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 this author's analysis of how individuals impact - or attempt to impact - housing inequality.
Drawing on her extensive research into code enforcement in Chicago, Bartram shows that building inspectors often make surprising choices about who to cite (and who not to cite) and discuss how these choices underscore the continuing challenge of persistent inequality.
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. This book illustrates the uphill battle inspectors face when trying to change a housing system that works against those with the fewest resources.
The book argues that cities are stacked decks. They are sites of vast disparities in racial wealth, health, education, and well-being. But this stacked deck also motivates. Disparities in the city inspire and organize action. Built environments - and the inequity they embody - motivate frontline workers like building code inspectors. But features of this unequal world also hinder the actions they inspire and work as justice blockers. This tension - between motivation and obstruction - makes inequality particularly stubborn and hard to change. This book is a story of how the stacked deck gets reproduced even when people are trying to do the opposite.