Geographies of Mobility

Professor Jane Pollard led on this project which lasted for 12 months. Funding was provided by the British Academy and the project was also supported by the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Synopsis of the research project

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 subprime lending did not disappear in the US; instead it has flourished in auto lending markets in cities like Los Angeles. This project charted, for the first time, some of the contours of borrowing and lending in this under-researched part of the credit and debt landscape, focusing on Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH) dealerships in Los Angeles. The research combined publicly available data with the collection and analysis of new qualitative data from industry and consumer stakeholders to explore: (1). How the automobile financing arrangements for low-income households differ from that of higher-income households; (2): How BHPH dealers target low-income consumers; (3): evidence of predatory lending in the industry; (4): regulatory approaches needed to protect consumers yet safeguard consumer choice.

Key outputs

Pollard JS, Blumenberg E and Brumbaugh S (2020) Driven to debt: social reproduction and (auto)mobility in Los Angeles, Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Pollard JS, Blumenberg E and Brumbaugh S (2020) Driven to debt: social reproduction and (auto)mobility in Los Angeles, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6jt6w4r2