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Looks Pittsburgh was among the most substandard housing of big Northeast/Midwest urban areas (St. Louis was slightly higher). New York City and Boston were among the lowest. Interestingly, so were Detroit and Cleveland.
Shocking, LOL! (It's not shocking to me. I've seen what's left!)
^^Most of the evidence is that it was the banks, not the govt. who did the redlining.
Back in the 30s the maps themselves - red lines and all - were drawn by a government agency. HOLC. I don't know how your statement could be less accurate.
Back in the 30s the maps themselves - red lines and all - were drawn by a government agency. HOLC. I don't know how your statement could be less accurate.
And as your link says, HOLC used consultants to draw the lines, which were local banks. They also didn't use the maps for loans nor did they share them with anyone who wanted them.
And as your link says, HOLC used consultants to draw the lines, which were local banks. They also didn't use the maps for loans nor did they share them with anyone who wanted them.
Exactly! From the link:
**HOLC made approximately 51,000 loans in Pennsylvania, 15,000 of which were made in Philadelphia and 6,000 in the Philadelphia suburbs. HOLC made a disproportionate number of loans to areas latter colored red on its residential security maps and to African Americans, Jews, and immigrants, at least in Philadelphia. Using local brokers, HOLC resold the 200,000 properties acquired when homeowners defaulted on their HOLC mortgages. Evidence from Detroit and Philadelphia indicate that HOLC practiced racial discrimination in selling off these homes, refusing to sell homes to African Americans in white neighborhoods [Hillier, Journal of Planning History].
Near the end of the three-year time period for which it was authorized to make new mortgages, HOLC began the ambitious City Survey program for its parent organization, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The survey resulted in detailed reports and color-coded maps (above) for 239 cities across the country. HOLC did not use the maps to decide where to make its loans, because it made most of its loans before starting the City Survey Program in late 1935. But HOLC did plan to use the survey data to inform its loan collection policies [Hillier, in review].**
The evidence that HOLC practiced discrimination is not given, and the link isn't working.
The FHA practiced discrimination. They did not invent it (no claimed it did so) but it was more influential than one bank.
Between 1930 and 1950, three out of five homes purchased in the United States were financed by FHA, yet less than two percent of the FHA loans were made to non-white home buyers.
I suppose you could argue the latter part could be just from black poverty, but it does sound rather extreme.
Maybe but blacks were usually prevented from moving to many city neighborhoods and even more suburbs at the time. And a neighborhood where black people were moving to got labeled as "declining". Segregation by race is more stronger than segregation by income.
In the 30s the black population in most northern & western cities was still pretty small to non-existent.
But by the late 50s black families were already on the move in NYC and Philly. Not to the suburbs, of course, but in Philadelphia there was a long and sustained movement out of the historic black neighborhoods near Center City to most parts of the city west of Broad St and black homeownership was on the rise throughout the period.
You see a similar pattern in NYC with black families moving into Brooklyn and the Bronx but it's not exactly the same because NY has never had the high rates of homeownership that Philly does.
I find it interesting, the different approaches to the civil rights that came out of different regions, and I think it's largely a response to the differences in the racism from region to region. You get the Panthers in Oakland, Malcolm X in NYC, then you get the SNCC in NC and the SCLC in Atlanta.
You see a similar pattern in NYC with black families moving into Brooklyn and the Bronx but it's not exactly the same because NY has never had the high rates of homeownership that Philly does.
I'd guess the effects of redlining were different when homeownership rates were low, not sure what the FHA did with rental units, if anything. From the link above, the NYC urban area's homeownership rate was 32% in 1950, Philadelphia was 62%.
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(It's not shocking to me. I've seen what's left!)
