NYU CUSP students John Lundquist, Yixuan Tang, Keith Dumanski, and Julian Ferreiro

One of NYU CUSP’s 2018 Capstone Teams will present their paper, “Digital Traces of the Predatory Landlord,” at this year’s Data for Good Exchange (#d4gx)!

The paper, by alumni Jack Lundquist, Yixuan Tang, Keith Dumanski, and Julian Ferreiro, is based on their work in the 2018 Capstone Program. Their capstone project, sponsored by CUSP’s Urban Modeling Group and mentored by Professor Debra Laefer, sought to use data to identify, characterize and hold to account New York City’s predatory landlords:

Abstract: Approximately 70 percent of New York City residents rent the place they call home, making landlords of residential properties some of the most influential people in the lives of New Yorkers. The past few years have seen a variety of high profile instances of tenant harassment, particularly around illegal and coercive actions taken to push tenants of rent stabilized units out in order to create a larger financial return on these units. These cases and the public outcry around them motivate further exploration into the question of how to better identify and prosecute landlords engaging in illegal behavior. Based on an original typology of predatory landlord behaviors, our team presents a set of methods to identify, investigate and regulate this behavior across New York City. The scale of this analysis has never been tackled before, and can substantially improve the way illegal landlord activity is discovered, prosecuted and regulated.

Learn more about their research here.

Jack Lundquist and Keith Dumanski will present their findings at D4GX on Sunday, September 16th, 2018 during the Public Services group, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Room 28 MPR!