  Housing scholars stress the importance of the information environment in
shaping housing search behavior and outcomes. Rental listings have increasingly
moved online over the past two decades and, in turn, online platforms like
Craigslist are now central to the search process. Do these technology platforms
serve as information equalizers or do they reflect traditional information
inequalities that correlate with neighborhood sociodemographics? We synthesize
and extend analyses of millions of US Craigslist rental listings and find they
supply significantly different volumes, quality, and types of information in
different communities. Technology platforms have the potential to broaden,
diversify, and equalize housing search information, but they rely on landlord
behavior and, in turn, likely will not reach this potential without a
significant redesign or policy intervention. Smart cities advocates hoping to
build better cities through technology must critically interrogate technology
platforms and big data for systematic biases.
