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The dataset you'll be working with comes from the Cook County Assessor's Office (CCAO) in Illinois, a government institution that determines property taxes across most

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The dataset you'll be working with comes from the Cook County Assessor's Office (CCAO) in Illinois, a government institution that determines property taxes across most of Chicago's metropolitan area and its nearby suburbs. In the United States, all property owners are required to pay property taxes, which are then used to fund public services including education, road maintenance, and sanitation. These property tax assessments are based on property values estimated using statistical models that consider multiple factors, such as real estate value and construction cost. This system, however, is not without flaws. In late 2017, a lawsuit was filed against the office of Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios for producing \"racially discriminatory assessments and taxes." The lawsuit included claims that the assessor's office undervalued highpriced homes and overvalued lowpriced homes, creating a visible divide along racial lines: Wealthy homeowners, who were typically white, paid less in property taxes, whereas working-class, non- white homeowners paid more. The Chicago Tribune's fourpart series, "The Tax Divide", delves into how this was uncovered: After "compiling and analyzing more than 100 million property tax records from the years 2003 through 2015, along with thousands of pages of documents, then vetting the findings with top experts in the field," they discovered that " residential assessments [had] been so far off the mark for so many years." You can read more about their investigation here. Additionally, the discrimination described in the lawsuit is built on a much deeper history - including the practice of redlining in Chicago. Though this is by no means a comprehensive history, MerriamWebster defines redlining as the "withholdding of home-loan funds or insurance from neighborhoods considered poor economic risks." The neighborhoods in this category, however, were typically comprised of Black communities; redlining, then, systemically prevented Black residents from moving into other neighborhoods and improving their current homes by denying them the financial assistance that white residents were afforded. Though the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed redlining, its mm and practices are still present today. This context is vital to understanding how the Cook County Residential Sales Data the dataset you'll be working with - was procured. This introduction aims to address how legacies of racial discrimination practices can be encoded within data, as well as consider how they might influence modeling choices. In what ways were the CCAO's property assessments discriminatory in late 2017? Type your answer here, replacing this text

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