Study demonstrates the lasting effects of redlining
Historically redlined neighborhoods are more likely to have a paucity of greenspace today compared to other neighborhoods.
The study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, demonstrates the lasting effects of redlining, a racist mortgage appraisal practice of the 1930s that established and exacerbated racial residential segregation in the United States. Results appear in
Environmental Health Perspectives.
In the 1930s, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) assigned risk grades to neighborhoods across the country based on racial demographics and other factors. "Hazardous" areas--often those whose residents included people of color--were outlined in red on HOLC maps.