Redlining

Today's Topic: Redlining

Mapping InequalityRedlining in New Deal America

If you are unfamiliar with the term redlining, as I was until I was 27 (embarrassingly enough), here is the definition:
In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services by federal government agencies, local governments as well as the private sector, to residents of specific neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices.
Background:
-Redlining in housing is essentially the government’s creating of a map that outlines areas of a city by 4 main categories. Blue is best, green is still desirable, yellow is declining, and red is hazardous.
-The HOLC is a was created in 1933 as part of the New Deal in order to give bonds to purchase homes.
-As part of this new established lending system, the government created and abided by maps that “assess[ed] credit-worthiness” and “were color-coded by race, with majority African-American areas marked in red and designated as ‘hazardous’” (Mapping Inequality).
Analysis:
-The creation of these maps were inherently racist. Researchers of Mapping Inequality state, “HOLC assumed and insisted that the residency of African Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages.” (While it did discriminate against working class whites, they were placed in yellow zones. African Americans and Immigrants were in red zones).
- “These patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that the maps led to reduced credit access and higher borrowing costs which, in turn, contributed to disinvestment in poor urban American neighborhoods with long-run repercussions.” For instance, in D.C., “racial segregation along both the C-B and D-C borders remains in 2010, almost three quarters of a century later. Moreover, we also find that the maps had sizable effects on homeownership rates, house values and rents” (The Effects of the 1930s HOLC “Redlining” Maps).
-“ Journalist Jonathan Tilove, who wrote a 2003 book based on visits to 650 King streets nationwide, called the King byways "black America’s Main Street. ‘Map them and you map a nation within a nation, a place where white America seldom goes and black America can be itself,’ he wrote. ‘It is a parallel universe with a different center of gravity and distinctive sensibilities. ... There is no other street like it’” (Gialanella).
- In the 2000s, banks targeted BIPOC for subprime mortgages which allow buyers with a lower credit score to purchase a home. The caveat is that these loans come with an interest rate that could be more than double of a traditional , effectively increasing monthly payments and lowering buyers’ ability to pay their loans.
(Sources)
Mapping Inequality:
City streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. struggle across U.S.: https://www.nj.com/news/2014/01/city_streets_named_for_martin_luther_king_jr_struggle_across_us.html

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