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In this article, I address how walking as a curatorial practice of storying a neighborhood facilitates an irreducible politics of place occurring as affective intensities at various registers, where everyday movements entangle with spatial enactments of racism. Working with theories of assemblage and immanent movement, I examine walking narratives in San Jose Japantown, California (U.S.), a historic, ethnic neighborhood historically subjected to U.S. government and banking practices of "redlining" and Japanese American incarceration and dislocation to prison camps. As an analytical method, assemblage requires attention to movement: material elements of arrangement, the relations they require, new arranging and arrangements they might enable, and how these arrangements are legitimated. I examine spatial racism as an assemblage, analyzing its affective qualities wherein attentiveness to immanent movement might breach the assemblage and, in doing so, reach toward radical reformation through memorialization, community activism and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing discrimination and racial segregation have a long history in the United States. The 1930s Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) "residential security maps," recently digitized, have become a popular visualization of Depression era mortgage lending risk patterns across American cities. Numerous housing policies have since been instituted, including the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), but mortgage lending bias persists. The degree to which detailed spatial patterns of bias have persisted or changed along with urban change is not well understood. We compare historic HOLC grades and contemporary levels of mortgage lending bias using spatially detailed HMDA data. We further examine the relationship between HOLC risk grades and contemporary racial and ethnic settlement patterns. Results suggest that historical mortgage lending risk categorizations and settlement patterns are associated with contemporary mortgage lending bias and racial and ethnic settlement patterns. Concerted and deliberate efforts will be needed to change these patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Detroit, Michigan, the urban poor fear they are being displaced and replaced by water. As part of the city's recent redevelopment efforts, planners have proposed creating green and blue infrastructure zones to manage urban flooding and mitigate the volume of overflow storm and sewer waters that pollute the Great Lakes each year. The areas slated for these water retention zones are the same marginal neighborhoods where Black residents face frequent foreclosures due to water debts and mass shutoffs from water and sewer services. This paper explores how water materializes and mediates uneven landscapes of livability, as well as new modes of living in common among those excluded from the urban commons. I introduce the concepts of "bluelining" and "blues infrastructures" in order to think through the contested assemblages of water, race, and space at the margins of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through community-engaged research, we investigate how political and economic practices have created food apartheid and the ways in which this legacy complicates efforts toward equitable urban agriculture in Salt Lake City (SLC). The study takes place in SLC's Westside, where an ample number of farms and gardens exist, yet food insecurity is a persistent issue. We partner with a small urban CSA farm operating in a USDA-designated food desert in SLC's Westside to explore the farmers' own questions about whom their farm is serving and the farms' potential to contribute to food justice in their community. Specifically, we examine (1) the member distribution of this urban CSA farm and (2) the underlying socio-political, economic, and geographic factors, such as inequitable access to land, housing, urban agriculture, food, and transportation, that contribute to this distribution. GIS analyses, developed with community partners, reveal spatial patterns between contemporary food insecurity and ongoing socioeconomic disparities matching 1930s residential redlining maps. These data resonate with a critical geographic approach to food apartheid and inform a need for deeper and more holistic strategies for food sovereignty through urban agriculture in SLC. While resource constraints may prevent some small farmers from attending to these issues, partnerships in praxis can build capacity and engender opportunities to investigate and disrupt the racial hierarchies enmeshed in federal agricultural policy, municipal zoning, and residential homeownership programs that perpetuate food apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through community-engaged research, we investi­gate how political and economic practices have cre­ated food apartheid and the ways in which this legacy complicates efforts toward equitable urban agriculture in Salt Lake City (SLC). The study takes place in SLC’s Westside, where an ample number of farms and gardens exist, yet food insecurity is a persistent issue. We partner with a small urban CSA farm operating in a USDA-designated food desert in SLC’s Westside to explore the farmers’ own questions about whom their farm is serving and the farms’ potential to contribute to food jus­tice in their community. Specifically, we examine (1) the member distribution of this urban CSA farm and (2) the underlying socio-political, eco­nomic, and geographic factors, such as inequitable access to land, housing, urban agriculture, food, and transportation, that contribute to this distribu­tion. GIS analyses, developed with community partners, reveal spatial patterns between contempo­rary food insecurity and ongoing socioeconomic disparities matching 1930s residential redlining maps. These data resonate with a critical geo­graphic approach to food apartheid and inform a need for deeper and more holistic strategies for food sovereignty through urban agriculture in SLC. While resource constraints may prevent some small farmers from attending to these issues, partner­ships in praxis can build capacity and engender opportunities to investigate and disrupt the racial hierarchies enmeshed in federal agricultural policy, municipal zoning, and residential homeownership programs that perpetuate food apartheid.

Previous studies estimating US population vulnerable to climate change have assumed that population is uniformly distributed within the geographical unit of analysis, typically a census block. That assumption overstates vulnerable population in places where people have avoided the most hazardous areas. After using independent samples of housing location and building footprints to validate a revised approach, this letter estimates the US population close to sea level and in floodplains based on the assumption that population in a hazard zone is proportional to the fraction of buildings in the hazard zone, for the period 1990–2020. The building-based assumption reduces population estimates about 30%. Over the 30-year period, the US population below 1 m increased 14%–18% from 1.85 (±0.19) million in 1990 to 2.2 (±0.25) million; population below 3 m increased 31%. Sea level rise accounts for 75% of the increase in population below 1 m, but only 14% of the increase below 3 m. Nevertheless, in 21 counties, net emigration from land below 1 m was greater than 1% of county population. Although this emigration was particularly great in the 2000s after Hurricane Katrina, it totaled 170 000 for the entire 30-year period. Similarly, the US population of inland 100-year floodplains increased 7%, but several hundred counties saw a steady emigration throughout the 30-year period which totaled about 240 000. Black residents accounted for 19% of the population below 1 m but only 12% of the nation’s population in 2020, meaning that Black residents were 63% more likely to live below 1 m than the general population nationwide. This disproportionality is more attributable to high Black populations in the most vulnerable localities (especially New Orleans) than to historic segregation. Black people also are almost five times as likely to have emigrated from land below 1 m than the general population since 1990.

Studies have recently begun to explore the potential long-term health impacts of homeownership policies implemented in the New Deal era. We investigated the association between assigned grades of lending risk by the Home Owners' Load Corporation (HOLC) maps from the 1930s and present-day prevalence of three cardiovascular risk factors (diabetes and obesity in 2020, and hypertension in 2019), estimated at the census tract level in the United States. To minimize potential confounding, we adjusted for sociodemographic data from the time period when HOLC maps were made. We calculated propensity scores (predicted probability of receiving a HOLC grade) and created a pseudo-population using inverse probability weighting. We then employed marginal structural models to estimate prevalence differences comparing A vs. B, B vs. C, and C vs. D HOLC grades. Adjusting only for regions, a less desirable HOLC grade was associated with higher estimated prevalence rates of present-day cardiovascular risk factors; however, most differences were no longer significant after applying propensity score methods. The one exception was that the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity were all higher in C vs. B graded census tracts, while no differences were observed for C and D and A and B comparisons. These results contribute to a small body of evidence that suggests historical "yellowlining" (as C grade was in color yellow) may have had persistent impacts on neighborhood-level cardiovascular risk factors 80 years later., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences.)

Beginning in the 1930s, neighborhood racial composition was an explicit determining factor in the evaluation of U.S. home values. This deliberate practice was outlawed in the 1960s and 1970s, but the correlation between neighborhood racial composition and home values persists. Using Census Bureau data from 1980 to 2015, the present study investigates the changing relationship between neighborhood racial composition and home appraisals, as well as the mechanisms that drive it. Contrary to what is often presumed, neighborhood racial composition was a stronger determinant of appraised values in 2015 than it was in 1980. Results suggest this is primarily due to contemporary appraising practices. Specifically, the use of the sales comparison approach has allowed historical racialized appraisals to influence contemporary values and appraisers' racialized assumptions about neighborhoods to drive appraisal methods. These findings provide strong evidence that persistent racial inequality is driven in part by perpetual devaluing of communities of color and they suggest further regulation is required to foster equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural racism, which is embedded in past and present operations of the U.S. housing market, is a fundamental cause of racial health inequities. We conducted an ecologic study to 1) examine historic redlining in relation to current neighborhood lending discrimination and three key indicators of societal health (mental health, physical health, and infant mortality rate (IMR)) and 2) investigate sustained lending disinvestment as a determinant of current neighborhood health in one of the most hypersegregated metropolitan areas in the United States, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We calculated weighted historic redlining scores from the proportion of 1930s Home Owners' Loan Corporation residential security grades contained within 2010 census tract boundaries. We combined two lending indicators from 2018 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to capture current neighborhood lending discrimination: low lending occurrence and high cost loans (measured via loan rate spread). Using historic redlining score and current lending discrimination, we created a 4-level hierarchical measure of lending trajectory. In Milwaukee neighborhoods, greater historic redlining was associated with current lending discrimination (OR = 1.73, 95%CI: 1.16, 2.58) and increased prevalence of poor physical health (β = 1.34, 95%CI: 0.40, 2.28) and poor mental health (β = 1.26, 95%CI: 0.51, 2.01). Historic redlining was not associated with neighborhood IMR (β = −0.48, 95%CI: −2.12, 1.15). A graded association was observed between lending trajectory and health: neighborhoods with high sustained disinvestment had worse physical and mental health than neighborhoods with high investment (poor physical health: β = 5.33, 95%CI: 3.05, 7.61; poor mental health: β = 4.32, 95%CI: 2.44, 6.20). IMR was highest in ‘disinvested’ neighborhoods (β = 5.87, 95%CI: 0.52, 11.22). Our findings illustrate ongoing legacies of government sponsored historic redlining. Structural racism, as manifested in historic and current forms of lending disinvestment, predicts poor health in Milwaukee's hypersegregated neighborhoods. We endorse equity focused policies that dismantle and repair the ways racism is entrenched in America's social fabric.

The authors argue that educational redlining, like redlining practices in housing markets, occurs in schools that use standardized test results to determine eligibility for academic programs. This discriminatory practice, which reduces education equity and increases academic segregation along the lines of racial and socioeconomic status within schools, must end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Racial covenants correlate with significantly lower temperature and higher tree cover today. • Covenants confer environmental benefits comparable to an A or B HOLC rating. • Results link environmental privilege today to historic racial discrimination. Research has demonstrated the impact of historic discriminatory mortgage lending (i.e., "redlining") on the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, while the environmental legacies of other racially discriminatory housing policies remain unexplored. Using a novel dataset of racial covenants in Minneapolis and its suburbs, the first complete map for any U.S. city, we find a significant positive association between historic racial covenant presence and cooler temperatures, increased tree canopy, and reduced impervious surface today. When compared to redlining, we find that covenants have an environmental impact comparable to the two highest HOLC designations (A or B). Further, within each HOLC grade, covenant presence is associated with additional environmental benefits that mitigate the negative environmental impact associated with redlining. This analysis reveals that the positive environmental benefits associated with covenants are not simply driven by an urban-suburban land-use gradient but, rather, are related to the privilege afforded to the legal guarantees of whiteness embedded in the covenant itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the active components, targets and biological significance of Redlining and Xuebijing by using network pharmacology, and also to explore the mechanism of treating Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) through "treating the same disease with different methods". Methods: The components and targets of Redlining and Xuebijing were obtained via the access of Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP). COVID-19-related proteins were screened in GeneC ards. Cytoscape software, ST RING, ClueGo tool and molecular docking were used to respectively construct the active component target network and protein interaction network, and also to make pathway enrichment analysis and verification, Results: The results of network analysis showed that the common components of the two compounds included luteolin, quercetin, kaempferol, isorhamnetin and phytosterol, of which quercetin, luteolin and kaempferol displayed certain binding ability to 3CLpro. There were 65 unique components in Xuebijing and 24 unique components in Redlining. These components might play an anti-CO VID-19 role through vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A), CASP3, IL--6, M APK1, MA PIC 8 and other key proteins, as well as Jak-STAT, PI3K--Akt, MAPK and TGF--P signaling pathways. Conclusion: Due to component variations, Redlining and Xuebijing have both the same and different anti-CO VID-19 targets. Through the analysis of targets and pathways, a preliminarily explanation was presented to clarify the scientific connotation of "treating the same disease with different methods" in the treatment of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the intersection of racialized land development and U.S. buyout programs to advance a framework for socially sustainable climate adaptation. Using GIS and content analysis, we examine the relationship between the site of contemporary buyout programs and neighborhoods surveyed in the 1930s by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). To evaluate whether buyout programs are more likely to occur in redlined neighborhoods, we identify the spatial patterns and associations between these two policies. We find that the majority of FEMA-funded buyouts occurring in HOLC-surveyed cities were located outside of graded zones; yet for the buyouts occurring in the graded historic urban core, the majority were located in redlined districts. We then consider how the language used to describe each neighborhood by the HOLC characterizes amenity and hazard and how these descriptions influenced later policy interventions. Using buyouts and HOLC as an example, we engage the color-evasive policy literature to argue for climate adoption policies that recognize the racialized history that has produced unequal vulnerabilities to hazards rather than relying on buyouts as a technical solution to climate change. Moving past recognition towards an agenda of action, we contend that co-production of knowledge is essential to inform environmental-decision making and that the sustainability research community and its allied fields must center environmental justice frameworks for equitable climate adaptation.

Introduction: Greater availability of commercial alcohol is associated with increased alcohol use and related public health problems. Greater alcohol outlet density, a marker of alcohol availability, is associated with poorer and predominantly minority neighborhoods. However, poorer populations, African Americans, and Latinxs report using less alcohol compared to Whites and wealthier groups. We consider the role of structural racism in the social ecology of alcohol availability. Specifically we examine racist urban land use practices in the USA which became codified in the 1930s through Federal Home Owner Lending Corporation (HOLC) designations for assigning parcel values, known as “redlining.” Redlining demarcated low-density residential zones for wealthy Whites which excluded poor and non-White people as well as certain businesses, including alcohol retailers. We assessed the impacts of historic redlining on present day risks for exposure to retail alcohol availability in urban Northern California. Methods: For six contiguous and demographically diverse Northern California cities we obtained digital renderings of HOLC maps (1937) which demarcated exclusions of people and businesses for 119 neighborhood areas across four land valuation zones. We then identified the most prevalent HOLC rating for each of 520 current Census block groups in the six cities, including a residual category for areas not rated by HOLC. We geolocated all current (2016) off-premise alcohol sales outlets operating in the six cities (N = 401). We used Bayesian spatial Poisson models to relate current alcohol outlet densities and Census-based estimates of neighborhood characteristics to historic HOLC classifications. Results: Spatial Poisson analyses found far greater contemporary off-premise outlet densities in the lowest-valued HOLC zones than in the highest (median relative rate [RR] 9.6, 95% CI 4.8–22.1). The lowest-valued HOLC zones were also characterized by far higher current percentages of both Black residents (RR 30.4, 95% CI 17.0–54.6) and Hispanic residents (RR 9.7, 95% CI 7.2–12.9). Conclusions: Present day risks for exposure to retail alcohol availability were delimited by historic exclusionary land use practices. Current inequitable health risks may be founded on racist spatial projects of past decades.

Systemic racism, which exists when minorities experience harmful outcomes from implicit or explicit bias, has recently been a much-discussed phenomenon. Systemic racism may exist, even though explicit bias is mostly illegal, because of structures of policy or behavior that generate deleterious outcomes. Bank financing for housing purchase or improvement is one such structure. An overtly discriminatory policy facilitated by an agency of the United States government, “redlining” on “residential security maps” depicted supposedly high-risk lending areas in red. These historical maps have led to low housing values today in formerly redlined areas. Even though the practice has been illegal for decades, traditional lenders nowadays decline loans in those areas because they are too small to be profitable. A system dynamics model shows the systemic structure of this situation. The model simulates various policies for its solution. Robust (but expensive) policies involve subsidies to lenders or lending from governments or nonprofits. Less robust but potentially cheaper policy would require lenders to make small loans anyway. Any of these policies would help break the adverse reinforcing loop of declining housing, inability to borrow to improve the housing, and further housing decline.

How has prejudice in the local and regional housing market impacted African Americans in the island city of Alameda, California? From the 19th century to present, developers, homeowners, landlords, policy-makers, and realtors have discriminated against African Americans who, in response, consistently wage battles for more affordable housing and inclusionary policies in Alameda. Prejudice realtors and developers restricted black renters and homeowners to the specific areas of the island prior to the Second World War. During and after the war, housing discrimination limited the majority of African Americans to temporary housing projects. Policies to redevelop project lands and direct the island’s future development intentionally exclude low-income renters and people of color. African Americans contest residential exclusion, build community by creating organizations and institutions, forge interracial alliances for open housing, and challenge exclusionary policies and practices. Recent efforts allegedly seeking to disperse poverty mask attempts to destabilize African American solidarity and claims for equality. The literature on African American migration to California and the East Bay typically focuses on larger municipalities like Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond, while neglecting smaller, inner suburban cities like Alameda. Using historical analysis, archival research and oral history of the residential experiences of African Americans in Alameda allows us to reconstruct communities that no longer exist, upset the geographical imagination of the city by demonstrating the historic presence and participation of non-white settlers and migrants, and finally shed light on wider patterns of displacement taking place in the recent and not so distant past.

The arrest of Fred Trump during a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally in New York City in 1927 came to light during the 2016 election campaign, but no one grasped its full historical significance. This article sets this contentious episode within the larger history of the Klan and the racial contests that scarred life in the interwar metropolitan fringe to produce a new account of how racially segregated communities were formed. The article finds a decade-long contested process of overlapping layers, driven by debates over race and national identity; tense relationships between community groups; the political machinery of city, state and federal governments; competition between civic groups for access to services; and all set against a turbulent speculative world of interwar real estate. The article argues racially redlined communities were created by a decade-long grassroots battle fought from below just as much as they were imposed from above by political decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Legacies of discriminatory federal housing practices-e.g., racialized property appraisal by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) and institutionalized redlining by the Federal Housing Administration-include disparate present-day environmental health outcomes. Noise pollution is health-harming, but just one study has associated contemporary noise with redlining in some HOLC-mapped United States (US) cities, while two national studies found associations between greater neighborhood-level people of color composition and increased noise. No studies have examined noise pollution exposure disparities across all HOLC-mapped cities or based on the intersection of race/ethnicity and redlining., Objective: We address three objectives: (1) Assess disparities in fine-scale, per person transportation noise exposures by historical redlining status across all HOLC-mapped cities. (2) Quantify disparities in noise exposures by race/ethnicity nationwide. (3) Explore interactions between redlining status and race/ethnicity in noise exposures., Methods: We analyzed three data sources: (1) complete digital HOLC maps of ordered investment risk grades (A-D), (2) fine-scale (30 m) estimates of transportation noise levels (year-2020), and (3) sociodemographic characteristics of individuals in year-2020 census blocks., Results: We find an approximately monotonic association for excess transportation noise with HOLC grade, marked by a pronounced exposure increase (17.4 dBA or 3× loudness) between contemporary residents of grade A (highest-graded) and D (lowest-graded) neighborhoods, a pattern consistent across HOLC-mapped cities. People of color experience ~7 dBA greater (2× louder) excess transportation noise exposures than White people nationwide, a pattern consistent across US counties. Noise exposure disparities are larger by HOLC grade than by race/ethnicity. However, contemporary racial/ethnic noise exposure disparities persist within each HOLC grade at levels approximating those disparities existing in ungraded areas, indicating that historical redlining is one of multiple discriminatory practices shaping contemporary national soundscape injustices., Significance: Findings illustrate how historical redlining and broader racialized inequalities in US society have shaped environmental injustices nationwide., Impact Statement: Excessive noise exposures harm human health. Communities of color in the United States experience disparate noise exposures, although previous studies are limited by reliance upon aggregated data. They are also disproportionately concentrated in historically redlined areas. Legacies of redlining include persistent racial and economic inequalities and environmental health disparities. Here, we conduct the first complete national examination of contemporary noise pollution disparities with respect to historical redlining and race/ethnicity. Findings advance understanding of the historical roots and enduring salience of race-based disparities in noise pollution exposures and can inform efforts to address these disparities through noise pollution policy-making., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.)

Background: This study examines the lasting impact of historical redlining on contemporary neurosurgical care access, highlighting the need for equitable healthcare in historically marginalized communities., Objective: To investigate how redlining affects neurosurgeon distribution and reimbursement in U.S. neighborhoods, analyzing implications for healthcare access., Methods: An observational study was conducted using data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) National File, Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) neighborhood grades, and demographic data to evaluate neurosurgical representation across 91 U.S. cities, categorized by HOLC Grades (A, B, C, D) and gentrification status., Results: Of the 257 neighborhoods, Grade A, B, C, and D neighborhoods comprised 5.40%, 18.80%, 45.8%, and 30.0% of the sample, respectively. Grade A, B, and C neighborhoods had more White and Asian residents and less Black residents compared to Grade D neighborhoods ( p  < 0.001). HOLC Grade A (OR = 4.37, 95%CI: 2.08, 9.16, p  < 0.001), B (OR = 1.99, 95%CI: 1.18, 3.38, p  = 0.011), and C (OR = 2.37, 95%CI: 1.57, 3.59, p  < 0.001) neighborhoods were associated with a higher representation of neurosurgeons compared to Grade D neighborhoods. Reimbursement disparities were also apparent: neurosurgeons practicing in HOLC Grade D neighborhoods received significantly lower reimbursements than those in Grade A neighborhoods ($109,163.77 vs. $142,999.88, p  < 0.001), Grade B neighborhoods ($109,163.77 vs. $131,459.02, p  < 0.001), and Grade C neighborhoods ($109,163.77 vs. $129,070.733, p  < 0.001)., Conclusion: Historical redlining continues to shape access to highly specialized healthcare such as neurosurgery. Efforts to address these disparities must consider historical context and strive to achieve more equitable access to specialized care., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Kabangu, Dugan, Joseph, Hernandez, Newsome-Cuby, Fowler, Bah, Fry and Eden.)

We explore how Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) scores of the 1930s impact 2010 and 2015 inhalable particulate matter (PM _10 ) concentrations for 15,232 census tracts, clustered in 196 cities throughout the contiguous United States. Using areal apportionment, we assign a HOLC score to housing tracts and construct hierarchical linear models to examine the relationship between the policy practice of redlining, PM pollution, and urban economic development. We find that redlining is associated with higher PM _10 concentrations, and that higher HOLC grades also intensify the association of per capita income, median rent, median home values, and racial composition with PM _10 . These findings suggest that historical policy programs that were grounded in racial logics—such as the HOLC practice of ‘redlining’—have an inertia that results in them influencing development pathways and environmental outcomes of built environments for decades.

In 1923, Southern California produced over twenty percent of the world’s oil. At the epicenter of an oil boom from 1892 to the 1930s, Los Angeles grew into the nation’s fifth largest city. By the end of the rush, it had also become one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. Historians have overlooked the relationship between industrialists drilling for oil and real estate developers codifying a racist housing market, namely through “redlining” maps and mortgage lending. While redlining is typically understood as a problem of horizontal territory, this paper argues that the mapping of the underground—the location and volume of subterranean oil fields, in particular—was a crucial technique in underwriting urban apartheid. Mapping technologies linked oil exploitation with restrictive property rights, constructing oil as a resource and vertically engineering a racialized housing market. By focusing on petro-industrialization interlocked with segregationist housing, this article reveals an unexamined chapter in Los Angeles’s history of resource exploitation and racial capitalism. Moreover, it contributes to a growing literature on the social production of resources, extractive technology and political exclusion, and the technoscientific practices used by states and corporations to mine the underground while constructing metropolitan inequality above ground.

Background: The Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in 1933 to provide government backing of troubled mortgages during the Great Depression. Residential security maps were created to guide investment in over 200 US cities. Neighborhoods were assigned grades of 'A' through 'D' (with corresponding color coding of green, blue, yellow and red) to indicate desirability for investment. Neighborhoods with a high percentage of African Americans or other minorities were frequently assigned grades of 'C' or 'D'. These maps are now most associated with redlining, or the process of denial of credit for real estate investment based on race. Resulting economic disparities endure in areas of many US cities today. We hypothesized that there would be a correlation between redlined areas on the 1937 map of Louisville, KY to the prevalence of gun violence today.Methods: Gunshot victims (GSV) and their residential addresses within the city of Louisville were examined between 2012 and 2018. GSVs were aggregated within census block groups to approximate neighborhoods. The spatial distribution of GSVs was analyzed against the original HOLC neighborhood grade. Additional control variables adapted from the 2013-2017 American Community Survey were included to account for other possible explanations for the spatial distribution of GSVs. A zero-inflated negative binomial regression with a spatial component was used to determine incidence rate ratios (IRR) for the relative likelihood of GSVs within neighborhoods.Results: Relative to green-graded neighborhoods, red-graded neighborhoods had five times as many GSVs. This difference remained statistically significant after accounting for differences in demographic, racial, and housing characteristics of the neighborhoods.Conclusion: Redlined neighborhoods within Louisville, KY in 1937 had significantly more GSVs today. The impact of historical and institutional racism on modern gun violence merits acknowledgement and further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary practice of homeownership in the United States was born out of government programs adopted during the New Deal. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)—and later the Federal Housing Administration and GI Bill—expanded home buying opportunity, although in segregationist fashion. Through mechanisms such as redlining, these policies fueled white suburbanization and black ghettoization, while laying the foundation for the racial wealth gap. This is the first article to investigate the long-term consequences of these policies on the segregation of cities. I combine a full century of census data with archival data to show that cities HOLC appraised became more segregated than those it ignored. The gap emerged between 1930 and 1950 and remains significant: in 2010, the black-white dissimilarity, black isolation, and white-black information theory indices are 12, 16, and 8 points higher in appraised cities, respectively. Results are consistent across a range of robustness checks, including exploitation of imperfect implementation of appraisal guidelines and geographic spillover. These results contribute to current theoretical discussions about the persistence of segregation. The long-term impact of these policies is a reminder of the intentionality that shaped racial geography in the United States, and the scale of intervention that will be required to disrupt the persistence of segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Historical patterns of discrimination and disinvestment have shaped the current landscape of vulnerability to heat in U.S. cities but are not explicitly considered by heat mitigation planning efforts. Drawing upon the equity planning framework and developing a broader conceptualization of what equity means can enhance urban heat management. Here I ask whether areas in Baltimore (MD), Dallas (TX), and Kansas City (MO) targeted for disinvestment in the past through practices like redlining are now more exposed to heat. I compare estimates of land surface temperature (LST) derived from satellite imagery across the four-category rating system used to guide lending practices in cities around the United States, summarize the demographic characteristics of current residents within each of these historical designations using U.S. Census data, and discuss the connection between systematic disinvestment and exposure to heat. LST and air temperatures are not equivalent, which makes it difficult to reconcile existing research on the human health impacts of heat exposure that rely on a sparse network of air temperature monitoring stations with more granular LST data. Areas of these cities that were targeted for systematic disinvestment in the past have higher mean land surface temperatures than those that received more favorable ratings. Poor and minority residents are also overrepresented in formerly redlined areas in each of the three study cities. Takeaway for practice: By examining areas that have experienced sustained disinvestment, cities may be able to more quickly narrow the focus of heat mitigation planning efforts while furthering social equity. Efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of rising temperatures in U.S. cities must be tailored to the local climate, built environment, and sociodemographic history. Finally, geospatial data sets that document historical policies are useful for centering and redressing current inequalities when viewed through an equity planning lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For nearly three decades, Healthy Start Initiative (HSI) has served communities with high rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes--with the goal to lower them by 50%. Despite a large focus on social determinants of health, HSI has narrowly addressed structural racism. The effects of legal housing discrimination continue to be felt and have profound implications for pregnancy. To understand the historical context of racism in these communities, we geospatially evaluated the relationship between HSI service areas and Home-Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) graded maps. Using data from John Snow, Inc, National Healthy Start Association, and Mapping Inequality we found that 73 of 100 communities served by HSI were subject to anti-Black housing discrimination. For majority, over 60% of the HOLC-assessed areas in the service areas were red or yellow graded. Given this we propose three programmatic shifts that HSI can implement to address structural racism and broaden their policy and advocacy efforts in the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American eugenicists in the 1930s saw housing programs as a vehicle for a new form of reproductive regulation promoting large families for the so-called fit while limiting family size among the so-called unfit. Housing developers, federal agencies, and real-estate associations used a eugenically informed racial hierarchy to justify redlining and preferential home loans that discriminated against African Americans and immigrants. Reframing this history from a feminist perspective, I argue that these practices were intended as a form of eugenic regulation that enforced women's role as reproducers. This reproductive agenda contributed to a legacy of race-based discrimination in housing, and disparities in wealth that resulted from those differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) has typically focused on this New Deal housing agency's invention of redlining, with dire effects from this legacy of racial, ethnic, and class bias for the trajectories of urban, and especially African American neighborhoods. However, HOLC did not embark on its now infamous mapping project until after it had issued all its emergency refinancing loans to the nation's struggling homeowners. We examine the racial logic of HOLC's local operations and its lending record to black applicants during the agency's initial 1933-1935 "rescue" phase, finding black access to its loans to have been far more extensive than anyone has assumed. Yet, even though HOLC did loan to African Americans, it did so in ways that reinforced racial segregation—and with the objective of replenishing the working capital of the overwhelmingly white-owned building and loans that held the mortgages on most black-owned homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redlining occurs when financial institutions refuse to serve particular neighborhoods, often based on their racial and ethnic composition. Maps like those infamously created by the New Deal's Home Owners' Loan Corporation in the Great Depression rated and color-coded neighborhoods, assigning red to those considered the greatest credit risk. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed in 1977 to combat the legacy and practice of redlining. However, we find neighborhoods rated declining or hazardous in the 1930s are still associated with worse economic conditions eight decades later. Moreover, although we find evidence that CRA encourages local banks and thrifts to lend to lower income borrowers, we find no difference in the market share of CRA-regulated lenders in lower income neighborhoods. In fact, these institutions lag the market in historically redlined neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a policy objective, environmental justice (EJ) aims to promote the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to environmental laws and regulations. At the current stage of EJ policy, federal and state regulators have attempted to prioritize populations for receiving federal and state grants and other benefits or to incentivize private investment. Using mapping and screening tools, policymakers have identified communities as "environmental justice communities", "disadvantaged", or "overburdened" based on selected social, economic, environmental, and health indicators. The overarching goal of the study is to understand the impacts of the environmental justice policy at the federal and state level, the extent to which the designation of EJ communities is a representative illustration of the populations experiencing environmental burdens, and their link to systemic racism, i.e., redlining. A methodology for assessing the implications of EJ definitions is proposed through a data-driven approach using socioeconomic and environmental indicators and examining previous land use discriminatory decision-making. The findings of the study have direct implications on the distribution of federal and state resources towards underserved and overburdened communities, but also in the methodologies utilized for environmental impact assessments (EIAs). The approach is demonstrated as a showcase study for the State of Connecticut, but the proposed methodology is of significance for future research on environmental impact assessments and policymakers nationwide. Our analysis points to four main key conclusions: a) a sole indicator to designate EJ communities, although it might seem more inclusive, is not representative of the disproportionate burdens communities are experiencing, b) race is a factor that cannot be neglected to identify injustices as is the parameter most correlated with environmental burdens, c) sophisticated tools that combine both social and environmental criteria in the designation provide a more accurate description of the environmentally challenged populations, and d) formerly redlined areas are highly associated with present inequalities, which indicates the value of the historical context in the identification of today's EJ communities, and the value of integrating redlining maps as a screening factor to designate EJ populations. • A sole indicator for EJ is not representative of the community's disproportionate burdens. • Race is highly correlated with environmental burdens and cannot be excluded from the EJ criteria. • A combination of social and environmental criteria better reflects EJ issues. • Redlined areas are highly associated with present inequalities, and minority populations. • Redlining maps as an additional screening factor to designate EJ populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Future pluvial flood exposure related to vulnerability at two spatial scales • Parcel scale revealed more spatial bias and correlations than census block group scale • Future flood exposure was negatively correlated with building age at parcel scale • City historical context affected relationships between flood exposure and redlining Flooding occurs at different scales and unevenly affects urban populations based on the broader social, ecological, and technological system (SETS) characteristics particular to cities. As hydrological models improve in spatial scale and account for more mechanisms of flooding, there is a continuous need to examine the relationships between flood exposure and SETS drivers of flood vulnerability. In this study, we related fine-scale measures of future flood exposure—the First Street Foundation's Flood Factor and estimated change in chance of extreme flood exposure—to SETS indicators like building age, poverty, and historical redlining, at the parcel and census block group (CBG) scales in Portland, OR, Phoenix, AZ, Baltimore, MD, and Atlanta, GA. We used standard regression models and accounted for spatial bias in relationships. The results show that flood exposure was more often correlated with SETS variables at the parcel scale than at the CBG scale, indicating scale dependence. However, these relationships were often inconsistent among cities, indicating place-dependence. We found that marginalized populations were significantly more exposed to future flooding at the CBG scale. Combining newly-available, high-resolution future flood risk estimates with SETS data available at multiple scales offers cities a new set of tools to assess the exposure and multi-dimensional vulnerability of populations. These tools will better equip city managers to proactively plan and implement equitable interventions to meet evolving hazard exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redlining refers to the officially sanctioned practice of denying mortgage loans in some areas in order to racially discriminate against Black people and other people of colour. Recent studies have shown the persistent impacts of redlining on health risks in effected neighbourhoods. This study contributes to that growing body of work by analysing the relationship between the category that neighbourhoods were assigned on redlining maps and the percentage of the population with 3+ risk factors as defined by the Census Bureau's Community Resilience Estimates. The areas given the lowest redlining grade of D are significantly different than those given the grades of A or B and the areas not graded at the time. This result supports the argument that historical governance and planning decisions do not stay in the past and planners must work to rectify equity issues lest we be complicit in this pattern of racial discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Historical maps of racialized evaluation of mortgage lending risk (i.e., redlined neighborhoods) have been linked to adverse health outcomes. Little research has examined whether living in historically redlined neighborhoods is associated with obesity, differentially by race or gender., Methods: This is a cross-sectional study to examine whether living in historically redlined neighborhoods is associated with BMI and waist circumference among Black and White adults in 1985-1986. Participants' addresses were linked to the 1930s Home Owners' Loan Corporation maps that evaluated mortgage lending risk across neighborhoods. The authors used multilevel linear regression models clustered on Census tract, adjusted for confounders to estimate main effects, and stratified, and interaction models by (1) race, (2) gender, and (3) race by gender with redlining differentially for Black versus White adults and men versus women. To better understand strata differences, they compared Census tract-level median household income across race and gender groups within Home Owners' Loan Corporation grade., Results: Black adults ( n =2,103) were more likely than White adults ( n =1,767) to live in historically rated hazardous areas and to have higher BMI and waist circumference. Redlining and race and redlining and gender interactions for BMI and waist circumference were statistically significant ( p <0.10). However, in stratified analyses, the only statistically significant associations were among White participants. White participants living in historically rated hazardous areas had lower BMI ( β = - 0.63 [95% CI= -1.11, -0.15]) and lower waist circumference ( β = - 1.50 [95% CI= -2.62, -0.38]) than those living in declining areas. Within each Home Owners' Loan Corporation grade, residents in White participants' neighborhoods had higher incomes than those living in Black participants' neighborhoods ( p <0.0001). The difference was largest within historically redlined areas. Covariate associations differed for men, women, Black, and White adults, explaining the difference between the interaction and the stratified models. Race by redlining interaction did not vary by gender., Conclusions: White adults may have benefitted from historical redlining, which may have reinforced neighborhood processes that generated racial inequality in BMI and waist circumference 50 years later., (© 2024 RAND Corporation.)

This paper examines the striking contrasts and inequalities observation by walking from Manhattan to Harlem in New York City, highlighting the significant social and economic differences that have profound implications for public health and social policy. Through this journey, we explore various aspects including racial segregation, the composition of shops, smoking habits, street cleanliness, police presence, unemployment, real estate disparities, and the pervasive sense of insecurity. The transition from a predominantly White Manhattan to a predominantly Black and Hispanic Harlem underscores the historical and systemic inequalities that continue to shape the city's demographic and economic landscape. These disparities, rooted in discriminatory housing policies, economic disparities, and social exclusion, manifest in poorer health outcomes, higher rates of substance use, and limited economic opportunities for minority populations. By addressing these structural issues through targeted policies and sustained interventions, policymakers may work towards reducing health disparities and promoting racial equity. This paper also highlights the concept of Minorities' Diminished Returns (MDRs), where the benefits of education and income are less pronounced for minority individuals compared to their White counterparts, further perpetuating cycles of disadvantage. Comprehensive efforts to dismantle systemic inequities are essential for fostering a more equitable and healthy society.

The 2016 centennial of Jane Jacobs's birth was an opportunity for scholars and pundits to reflect on the legacy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and the author's other works and activism. Such reflections naturally reflected on her enduring appeal and readership, but also sought to find shortcomings. Among the critics, and even some otherwise admiring biographers, was a theme that while Jacobs was keen to observe the importance of "eyes on the street" and other street-scaled phenomena, she was weak on such overarching structural concerns as racism, power, and capital. From such charges arose claims that Jacobs was race-blind and a neoliberal, accusations made more dramatic in the context of the polarizing rhetoric of the 2016 US presidential election, Brexit, and other ideological divisions. By examining Jacobs's ideas about the freedom of the city; segregation and discrimination; public space and social capital; neighborhood organization and self-government; and her rejection of the "Plantation mentality," this paper challenges those claims and shows Jacobs as an important theorist of ethics in the city, which she described as an "ecosystem" of "physical-economic-ethical processes" ideally characterized by "mutual support." • Some biographers have mistakenly described Jacobs as race-blind and a neoliberal. • Jacobs wrote at length against racism, housing discrimination, and redlining. • Jacobs was a pioneering theorist of gentrification and an activist against it. • Rejecting libertarianism, Jacobs advocated community organizing and mutual support. • Jacobs's writing and activism was a precedent for today's progressive social thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When an employer refuses to recruit a job applicant due to the applicant's place of residence, we speak of redlining in the labour market. There are two explanations for this practice by the employer. The first is the excessive distance between the applicant's place of residence and the workplace, justified by a logic of spatial mismatch. The second is based on the characteristics of the neighbourhood in line with a signal logic. We propose to measure the effects of these two mechanisms using a correspondence test conducted in the Paris region of France for two occupations: waiters and cooks. It appears that distance plays a significant role and reinforces the effect of a disreputable neighbourhood. The most deprived neighbourhoods combine these two types of drawbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review summarized findings and key measures from U.S.-based studies that 1) examined associations between geographic indicators of structural racism (e.g., redlining, racial segregation) and access to food retailers (e.g., supermarkets, convenience stores) or 2) documented disparities in access by neighborhood racial/ethnic composition. In 2022, relevant scientific literature was reviewed using Covidence software. Independent reviewers examined 13,069 citations; 163 citations advanced to the full-text review stage and 70 were selected for inclusion. Twenty-one studies (30%) linked one or more indicator of structural racism to food retailer access while 49 (70%) solely examined differences in access by neighborhood racial/ethnic composition. All studies featuring indicators of structural racism reported significant findings; however, indicators varied across studies making it difficult to make direct comparisons. Key indicators of structural racism in the food access literature included redlining (n = 3), gentrification (n = 3), and racial segregation (n = 4). Many U.S.-based studies have evaluated food retailer access by neighborhood racial/ethnic composition. Moving forward, studies should model indicators of structural racism and determine their influence on geographic access to large and small food retailers. • Many studies have reported disparities in food retailer access by neighborhood racial/ethnic composition in the U.S. • Significantly fewer studies have evaluated associations between indicators of structural racism and food retailer access. • This review summarized 21 studies that examined associations between structural racism and food retailer access. • All 21 studies found evidence of associations between an indicator of structural racism and limited food retailer access. • Among the indicators were redlining, gentrification, and racial segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are cities or regions with legal red-light districts in both developed and developing countries, but there are also regions or countries with no clear rules regarding prostitution. Financing issues in red-light districts represent another aspect rarely examined in the academic world. Most research studies about redlining are focused on racial or poverty levels, but this paper investigates it in relation to moral issues concerning vice activities. The objectives of this paper are to firstly analyse the red-light phenomenon in relation to sales prices and rent prices, secondly to test the redlining effect on property markets. This paper contributes to the current academic literature. The research setting of this paper is Geylang, Singapore, a place known for its centralized location, 24/7 stores, historic locales and prostitution-related business. The results indicate that the existence of Singapore’s red-light district has a negative effect on both residential purchase prices and rent levels. The results also indicate that there exists a redlining effect since the home prices have a much higher dis-count than rents.