The original 1947 NANP area codes are far too large to have systemic bias built into them, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that over the subsequent 72 years, there have been serious shenanigans in the evolution of the system. Those shenanigans including but not limited to: the choice to split an exhausted area code vs. overlaying a new code onto the territory of the old one, or choosing the boundaries of a split, or determining which side of a split area code got to keep the old number and which side had to learn a new one.
Actually, that last one is totally a documented thing; the traditional method is by which side has more business telephone numbers, because updating those records (and PBX systems) is considered more difficult than changing residential numbers. So city centers and cities proper tend to keep the old area code numbers, while the suburbs get a new one; the class and racial valence of this has obviously shifted drastically since the 1990s and the Great Inversion.
I don't know how you want to treat the one really deliberate case of bias in the 1947 area codes: bigger, more economically important cities were deliberately assigned lower numbers because 1s and 2s take less time to dial on a rotary telephone than 8s, 9s, and 0s.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-01-16 04:40 am (UTC)Actually, that last one is totally a documented thing; the traditional method is by which side has more business telephone numbers, because updating those records (and PBX systems) is considered more difficult than changing residential numbers. So city centers and cities proper tend to keep the old area code numbers, while the suburbs get a new one; the class and racial valence of this has obviously shifted drastically since the 1990s and the Great Inversion.
I don't know how you want to treat the one really deliberate case of bias in the 1947 area codes: bigger, more economically important cities were deliberately assigned lower numbers because 1s and 2s take less time to dial on a rotary telephone than 8s, 9s, and 0s.