Title: America’s Legacy of Redlining - Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion – Syracuse University
Headings: America’s Legacy of Redlining: State-Sponsored Segregation and Disenfranchisement of Urban Minority Communities
America’s Legacy of Redlining: State-Sponsored Segregation and Disenfranchisement of Urban Minority Communities
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Content: I-81 concentrated redlined areas to the west side of the city and continues to deter economic growth in the communities it sequesters. Neighborhoods on the west side of I-81 have consistently higher rates of poverty and lower educational attainment within a population that is primarily made up of racial/ethnic minorities. 3 Low-quality housing leads to lower property taxes, a determining factor when cities designate funding for public schools. Because less revenue is generated from property taxes in redlined communities, public schools there are consistently underfunded. While these schools often receive additional funding from grants or the state government, they must allocate a greater portion of their budget to food services to meet the nutritional needs of students, or provide after-school programs compared to their suburban counterparts. Additionally, lower quality commercial spaces, coupled with high poverty levels, discourages food businesses, such as grocery stores and organic food markets, from establishing locations in redlined neighborhoods. Food deserts are created, where it is significantly more challenging for residents to find affordable healthy foods. 4
Redlining and its consequences have denied socioeconomic mobility to the inhabitants of underserved neighborhoods, which plays a role in increased crime. Gang violence and crime, specifically robbery and assault, have trended upward over the years since redlining began. According to the 2020 crime rate data, the assault rate in Syracuse is nearly two times higher than that of the national average.