Discriminating Appraisals.

The article discusses map-based mortgage risk-rating techniques used by the U.S. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in the 1930s. Particular focus is given to attitudes towards these techniques and policies within the FHA itself. It is suggested that while historians have criticized these techniques as discriminatory, FHA officials believed that they were developing an objective decision-making aid and computational tool. Particular focus is given to the development of the fields of real estate, social science, and urban science. Topics discussed include mortgage underwriting, appraiser Frederick Babcock, human ecology, and quantitative data.