Title: How Redlining Continues To Shape Racial Segregation In Milwaukee | WisContext
Headings: How Redlining Continues To Shape Racial Segregation In Milwaukee
How Redlining Continues To Shape Racial Segregation In Milwaukee
1930s Lending Map Reveals The Policy Roots Of Housing Discrimination
Graphics:
A New Deal-era housing policy
Redlining made segregation a reality

Content: These maps were used by bank and finance entities in making lending and other investment decisions.</p>  <p>Based on instructions from the HOLC, the assessors who created these maps systematically outlined residences and rated neighborhoods based on of the aesthetics and age of houses, their proximity to recreational facilities and environmental hazards and the characteristics of the people who lived in each neighborhood.</p>  <p>Consistent with the overt racism and other bigotries of the era, many of the appraisal questions were implicitly or explicitly concerned with the demographics of the residents. The races, national origins, ethnicities and religions of the people occupying neighborhoods were part of HOLC's assessments of an area's worthiness for investment. The resulting grading system categorized neighborhoods on maps, reflecting the prejudices of the evaluators and the ingrained biases of the system as a whole.</p>   <p>HOLC developed four distinct categories when mapping neighborhoods. These categories were meant to serve as a basis for a financial institution to determine the perceived desirability and risks of investing in a neighborhood. The categories were color-coded green, blue, yellow and red, in increasing order or risk and corresponding decreasing order of desirability.</p>  <p>The "best" areas were given a grade of A and coded green, and were deemed to be exemplary neighborhoods for lenders. They were ideal in that the neighborhoods were structurally sound, visually appealing and composed of exclusively white residents.</p>  <p>For example, the assessor of Washington Highlands in the suburb of Wauwatosa rated this subdivision an A based on its status as a "highly restricted and exclusive area." He noted that the area had a controlling building committee "which permits a wide latitude of discrimination in accepting residents into the neighborhood. "</p>  <p>Washington Highlands was the first metro Milwaukee neighborhood to implement specific restrictions on the race of the people who could live there. As described in a <a href="https://www4.uwm.edu/eti/Archives/RaciallyRestrictiveCovenants.pdf" target="_blank">1979 report</a> by the Metropolitan Integration Research Center, when Washington Highlands was developed in 1919, the property deeds of the development specified that "at no time shall the land included in Washington Highlands or any part thereof, or any building thereon be purchased, owned, leased or occupied by any person other than of white race." This restriction remained in place until it was made illegal during the Civil Rights Era.</p>   <p>Areas coded blue, or grade B, were deemed "still desirable."