Redlining

Redlining is the denial or restriction of credit, insurance, public services, or investment in neighborhoods deemed risky, often because of their racial composition. The practice entrenched racial and economic inequality in housing and wealth.

Home Owners' Loan Corporation: A U.S. federal agency created in 1933 to refinance mortgages and produce neighborhood risk assessments. Its residential security maps helped codify neighborhood risk ratings later associated with redlining.
National Housing Act of 1934: A U.S. law that created the Federal Housing Administration and expanded federal mortgage insurance. It established a major federal channel through which discriminatory housing standards influenced mortgage access.
Racial wealth gap in the United States: The unequal distribution of household wealth among racial groups in the United States. Restricted homeownership and appreciation limited a major route to wealth for affected families.
Steering (real estate): The practice of directing prospective homebuyers toward or away from neighborhoods based on protected characteristics. Steering discriminates through the choices offered to individuals, unlike redlining's neighborhood-level restriction of services.
Fair lending: The principle and practice of providing credit without unlawful discrimination. Fair-lending rules and examinations target discriminatory patterns associated with redlining.
Residential Security Maps: Maps produced by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation that graded urban neighborhoods by perceived mortgage risk. Their grades marked many minority neighborhoods as hazardous, giving lenders a spatial template for exclusion.
New Deal: A set of U.S. programs and reforms introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Redlining grew within New Deal housing programs that expanded mortgage finance while excluding many Black communities.
Housing segregation: The separation of racial or ethnic groups among residential areas. Redlining reinforced residential separation by restricting credit and investment in targeted neighborhoods.
Blockbusting: A real-estate practice that induced white homeowners to sell cheaply by exploiting fears of racial integration. It profited from neighborhood change, while redlining restricted credit and investment in designated areas.
Geographic information system: A system for collecting, managing, analyzing, and displaying data tied to geographic locations. GIS allows researchers to compare historical redlining grades with present-day health, investment, and environmental data.

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