Federal mortgage maps caused urban blight and capital flight in black neighborhoods

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Federal agencies color-coded neighborhoods by race to steer mortgage lending; Predatory lending and loan servicing cascades drive black home foreclosures — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 324; Federal loan agencies institutionalized racial segregation as real-estate orthodoxy — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 144 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Redlined maps graded neighborhoods by coded race and decay categories for lending. #corroborates (0.93) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 371