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: America’s Legacy of Redlining - Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion – Syracuse University
America’s Legacy of Redlining: State-Sponsored Segregation and Disenfranchisement of Urban Minority Communities
July 13, 2020
Ashley Van Slyke
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View our other research briefs. The History of Redlining
As protests against police brutality and systemic racism break out across the United States, the term “redlining” has once again seized headlines and social media attention. Initially coined in 1934 under the Home Owners’ Loan Coalition (HOLC), the term redlining describes the act of designating areas on residential maps as “hazardous,” meaning too risky to issue and insure mortgages. Individuals and families looking to purchase homes within the neighborhoods labeled “red” or “hazardous” were refused home loans under the terms of HOLC, resulting in lower home values and unstable living conditions. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), established as a part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, cited the poor housing market, declining public health, unemployment, and economic immobility as reasons to refuse mortgages to residents. In reality, these neighborhoods were redlined because they housed the highest numbers of “undesirable populations,” including immigrants, people of color, of the Jewish faith, and those of generally low socioeconomic status. 1 The effects of redlining remain prominent nearly a century later and continue to contribute to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. In the years following 1934, the repercussions of the FHA’s redlining policy only worsened. Business owners, looking for new locations, chose areas considered “safe,” while avoiding “red” zones.