Note how the violent crime rate tripled between 1965 and 1980, and although the violent crime rate has been falling since the mid-1990s, it is still close to double the 1965 rate.
First, the numbers for homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary and motor vehicle theft…Next, a comparison of Oakland and U.S. crime rates… Verdict: …
Of course, causes rarely work like that in the real world, which is why scientists speak such in such convoluted terms. To say “x partly accounts for a portion of y given certain assumptions and conditions and only at high levels of x” lacks the emotional bunch of “x causes y” but that’s often how the world works.
So when people say x is the cause, or the ultimate cause, or the root cause, of some phenomenon: doubt and try to disconfirm the proposition - with a Wason test.
What would Make Redlining a Root Cause of the Black-White Homeownership Gap (If It is One), Part III
The gap in Black-white homeownership rates recently reached 30.1% in the U,S. Per Jung Hyun Choi of The Urban Institute, three factors explain around 80% of this gap: difference in Black-white income (31%), marital status (27%), and credit scores (22%).
Andre Perry and David Harshbarger of the Brookings Institute have already crunched those numbers. To quote:
…approximately 11 million Americans (10,852,727) live in once-redlined areas, according to the latest population data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2017). This population is majority-minority but not majority-Black, and, contrary to conventional perceptions, Black residents also do not form a plurality in these areas overall. The Black population share is approximately 28%, ranking third among the racial groups who live in formerly redlined areas, behind white and Latino or Hispanic residents…While still a tremendously large population, the approximately 3 million Black residents in redlined areas account for just 8% of all non-Latino or Hispanic Black Americans.
Proximate cause (direct cause): Occurs immediately prior to the [outcome of interest]; directly results in its occurrence and, if eliminated or modified, would have prevented the undesired outcome
Root Cause: One of multiple factors (events, conditions or organizational factors) that created the proximate cause and subsequent undesired outcome. Typically multiple root causes contribute to an undesired outcome [my italics].
Root Cause Analysis: A method primarily used to identify the underlying cause of an incident or issue, and more effectively mitigate or prevent future similar incidents.
— So the question for this post is: how would we know whether the historical practice of redlining created a causal pathway that led directly to the current Black-White homeownership gap in the US? In other words, was redlining one of multiple factors responsible for the proximate causes of the Black-White homeownership gap?