Title: HOLC “redlining” maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality » NCRC
Headings: HOLC “redlining” maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality
HOLC “redlining” maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality
Executive Summary
The economic and racial segregation created by “redlining” persists in many cities
Persistent economic inequality
Persistent residential segregation
INTRODUCTION

Content: Gentrification is related to some lessening of segregation,
but also with increased economic inequality
Gentrification is associated with greater economic change in the HOLC highest-risk, “Hazardous” neighborhoods and higher levels of interaction between black and white residents, but also greater economic inequality in cities. Gentrification probably occurred in the HOLC “Hazardous” graded areas because of decades of depressed home values. Regional differences in changes of HOLC “Hazardous”,
and LMI and majority-minority areas
Cities in the South showed the least change in the HOLC-evaluated “Hazardous” neighborhoods that today have lower incomes and higher populations of majority-minority residents. The Midwest closely followed the South in the persistence of low-to-moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods and HOLC “Hazardous” areas. INTRODUCTION
Access to credit––home mortgage and small business loans––is an underpinning of economic inclusion and wealth-building in the U.S. Credit access, however, varies greatly depending on individual creditworthiness, and also on place-based factors like economic conditions of prosperity and growth which shape local credit markets. Another determinant of credit access is the risk associated with lending, which can be mitigated by the value of the collateral. Home mortgage lending credit access is subject to all of these factors, with the property collateralizing the loan. As a consequence, it has a neighborhood-level spatial structure, presenting a geography which can be examined in maps of cities across the country. Redlining––the practice of denying borrowers access to credit based on the location of properties in minority or economically disadvantaged neighborhoods––was widely practiced across the U.S., even in places not commonly associated with “Jim Crow” segregation laws (Rothstein 2017). While overt redlining is illegal today, having been prohibited under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, its enduring effect is still evident in the structure of U.S. cities.