Federal agencies color-coded neighborhoods by race to steer mortgage lending

Evidence

Yellow areas are characterized by age, obsolescence, and change of style; expiring restrictions or lack of them; infiltration of a lower grade population; the presence of influences which increase sales resistance such as inadequate transportation, insufficient utilities, perhaps heavy tax burdens, poor maintenance of homes, etc. “Jerry” built areas are included, as well as neighborhoods lacking homogeneity. Generally, these areas have reached the transition period. Good mortgage lenders are more conservative in the Yellow areas and hold loan commitments under the lending ratio for the Green and Blue areas. … Red areas represent those neighborhoods in which the things that are now taking place in the Yellow neighborhoods have already happened. They are characterized by detrimental influences in a pronounced degree, undesirable population or infiltration of it. Low percentage of home ownership, very poor maintenance and often vandalism prevail. Unstable incomes of the people and difficult collections are usually prevalent. The areas are broader than the so-called slum districts. Some mortgage lenders may refuse to make loans in these neighborhoods and others will lend only on a conservative basis. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 371 (#expands, via linked claim)

During the New Deal, federal agencies like the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration encouraged redlining practices that explicitly marked minority neighborhoods as risky investments and, therefore, discouraged bank loans, mortgages, and insurance there. Other policies simply targeted Black communities for isolation and demolition. The postwar programs for urban renewal, for instance, destroyed Black neighborhoods and displaced their residents with such regularity that African Americans came to believe, in James Baldwin’s memorable line, that “urban renewal” meant “Negro removal.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1196 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Federal loan agencies institutionalized racial segregation as real-estate orthodoxy — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 144; Redlined maps graded neighborhoods by coded race and decay categories for lending. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 371; Federal mortgage maps caused urban blight and capital flight in black neighborhoods (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Redlined maps graded neighborhoods by coded race and decay categories for lending. #expands (0.98) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 371
• Federal housing programs institutionalized residential segregation through redlining and demolition #expands (0.92) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1196