My colleague Richard Green has written what looks to be a wonderful manuscript with Thomas Mitchell and Stephen Malpezzi on the long-term prosperity outcomes associated with forced sales conditions, and how property sold under compulsory conditions yield lower prices than under fair market conditions. In addition, the race and ethnicity of the property owner also factors in, with minority-status property owners getting lower prices. There’s a “double discount”–minority property owners are more likely to experience forced sales, and then as people of color they receive even lower sale values than non-minority households.

I’m so excited by this research! It’s so essential to understanding sustainability, largely because of the looming issues associated eminent domain and with larger social justice questions involving reparations to African Americans. If I’ve said it to my students once, if forced sales results in fair sales, why do we never do it in Beverly Hills, Georgetown, Beacon Hill, or Malibu?