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
References

Content: Syracuse and Baltimore
A case study of the long-term effects of redlining can be found within the cities of Syracuse, New York and Baltimore, Maryland. Syracuse, NY
In Syracuse, the history of redlining perpetuates racial/ethnic discrimination and socioeconomic disparities between local communities. The city has the highest national concentration of poverty among Latino and Black residents and is located in Onondaga County, the ninth most segregated county in America. Minority communities have been left isolated in their underserved neighborhoods, the borders of which clearly match the redlined areas on residential security maps from 1934. 3
The 1956 Federal Highway Act brought Interstate-81 to Syracuse, altering and disrupting existing communities in its path. 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.