Fractured landscapes: The racialization of home buyout programs and climate adaptation

Abstract

The paper analyzes the intersection of racialized land development and U.S. buyout programs to advance a framework for socially sustainable climate adaptation. Using GIS and content analysis, we examine the relationship between the site of contemporary buyout programs and neighborhoods surveyed in the 1930s by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). To evaluate whether buyout programs are more likely to occur in redlined neighborhoods, we identify the spatial patterns and associations between these two policies. We find that the majority of FEMA-funded buyouts occurring in HOLC-surveyed cities were located outside of graded zones; yet for the buyouts occurring in the graded historic urban core, the majority were located in redlined districts. We then consider how the language used to describe each neighborhood by the HOLC characterizes amenity and hazard and how these descriptions influenced later policy interventions. Using buyouts and HOLC as an example, we engage the color-evasive policy literature to argue for climate adoption policies that recognize the racialized history that has produced unequal vulnerabilities to hazards rather than relying on buyouts as a technical solution to climate change. Moving past recognition towards an agenda of action, we contend that co-production of knowledge is essential to inform environmental-decision making and that the sustainability research community and its allied fields must center environmental justice frameworks for equitable climate adaptation.