By Living Room Realty, December 6, 2018
The term “redlining” gets bandied about during discussions around building affordable housing and gentrification, but not a lot of people actually understand what it is or where the term came from.
During a housing shortage in 1933, the US government started subsidizing builders to create large quantities of homes, but with strict regulations of who could live in these communities. A huge majority of these builds were in what was becoming the new suburban landscape, and they were designed specifically for white middle-class families, with a requirement being the exclusion of black families. This meant that while white families were getting the opportunity to buy new homes, the non-white, and specifically African-American, populations were forced by law to find living accommodations in the inner city in less desirable housing projects. These policies and regulations also allowed banks to refuse to give mortgage loans to people trying to buy in or near “black” neighborhoods. This line drawing by the Federal Housing Administration was known as “redlining”, since they would literally not offer mortgages to anyone within these marked out areas.
It was essentially state and federally-sponsored segregation and it has rippled through the housing market ever since. The effects of these racist policies created a pattern of neglect and wealth inequality within inner-city communities. Without the opportunity for upward mobility, these communities stagnated and have led to a lot of the conversations we are having today surrounding urban development and gentrification.
