A couple of months ago, I sat down and looked up every Chicago neighborhood in Google. I made note of how Google portrayed each neighborhood, focusing on loaded keywords and adjectives. This is the final article in a four-part series discussing my findings. I suggest you start at the beginning.

We've discussed in the previous articles in this series how Google can affect our perceptions by changing the order of their search results. We've also discussed how a Google search results page (SERP) will have both a list of links, and a list of "related searches" at the bottom. In the course of my research I noticed that for some neighborhoods, Google would suggest "homes for sale" as a related search. In some cases it would alternatively suggest "condos for sale" or "lofts for sale." For others it would only suggest "apartments for rent." The difference is more important than you'd initially think. Continue reading Is Google Quietly Manipulating Property Values? Chicago Neighborhoods According to Google, Part 4

This is part of an ongoing series discussing how Chicago neighborhoods are described through the lens of Google's search results. You can find a list of all four articles at the bottom of the post.

Today we'll be looking at how Google's search results portray the racial and economic breakdown of Chicago's neighborhoods. As I mentioned last week, I tallied mentions of race and class separately from the emotional terms. While calling a neighborhood "poverty-ridden," "affluent" or "Swedish" might have a positive or negative impact on your overall impression of a given area, it won't necessarily have the same impact for everyone in the same way as something like "dangerous," "pretty" or "boring."

In some ways, Google's take on the race and class makeup of Chicago is far more important than any adjectives sprinkled through its search results. It's crucial information for many newcomers that real estate agents cannot discuss. In fact I would argue that race and class information are probably the main things that would prompt someone to Google a neighborhood in the first place.

Race and National Origin

Chicago is infamous as a highly segregated city. Maps such as the one featured on Radical Cartography use census data to highlight exactly how clustered we are along racial lines. Google's map, by contrast, looks like a crazy quilt that's been nibbled by moths. Continue reading Who are the people in your neighborhood (according to Google)? Chicago Neighborhoods According to Google, Part 3