This series explores historical foundations of the American Southwest and their effect on urban issues today—including the region’s worsening housing crisis.

Housing segregation was made illegal in 1968, but its effects remain visible in Southwest cities. A coalition of researchers, advocacy groups and community members recently completed the Mapping Racist Covenants (MRC) Project, which identified exclusionary language still present in the contracts of many Tucson neighborhoods. Though about a third of residents lived in an area with racist restrictions at the time of the study, this work helped spur state-level changes to make removing discriminatory language easier.

This episode primarily features Dr. Jason Jurjevich, Director of the MRC Project and assistant professor at the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. Dr. Jurjevich dives into the MRC project, as well as his other work evaluating plumbing poverty in the US and the use of Census data as a policymaking tool.

Hosted, produced and edited by Patricia Schwartz; post-production by Carlos Quintero.