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The term digital divide entered the American vocabulary in the mid-1990s to refer to unequal access to information technology. However, public debate has addressed the digital divide as a technical issue rather than as a reflection of broader social problems. In this article, Jennifer Light critically analyzes how access to technology is constructed as a social problem and examines the particular assumptions about technology and inequality that frame the debate. Drawing on historical examples, Light examines why hopes that technology would improve society have often not been fulfilled. The author examines the striking asymmetries between the current and earlier debates about the relationship between technology and society. She invites us to consider the different ways in which the problem of access to technology has been constructed, and suggests that these differences may generate ways to enrich the current debate and begin a conversation about more robust solutions. (pp. 710–734)

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Histories of the emergence of federally sanctioned mortgage underwriting in the United States have made racial discrimination a central theme. Yet their emphasis on systematic favoritism for whites over blacks tells only part of the story. This article examines how a broader, waning concept of race that encompassed nationality as well as skin color influenced the practice of locational risk rating at the Federal Housing Administration. Using qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the construction of "neighborhood risk" reveals how, from the introduction of the agency's underwriting standards, raters depended on a more nuanced population classification scheme in evaluating urban areas. The evidence presented here about the differential treatment of nationality groups points to new directions for studies of housing policy in the United States.