Examining the long-term influence of New Deal era redlining on contemporary gentrification

Abstract

The New Deal era’s Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) programme has garnered notoriety for denying Black communities financial investment based on their race through the practice known as redlining. It is possible that redlining influenced future investment in these neighbourhoods by making them more appealing to gentrifiers through creating a rent gap or increasing the percentage of non-White populations. To explore the link between HOLC redlining and gentrification, we drew upon a sample of 58 cities across the United States from the Mapping Decline project. We also leveraged historical Census data collected by IPUMS and the Longitudinal Tract Database, as well as data on urban renewal from Renewing Inequality to control for intervening factors. Findings indicate that HOLC redlining can either directly or indirectly relate to gentrification depending on when gentrification begins. These findings encourage more consideration of the role of racist government policies in determining when gentrification will occur.