Thread by @rjmarr

Maybe you've seen this, but this week my students and I went on an eye-opening trip through the @americanpano Mapping Inequality project from @UR_DSL

#Redlining in #RVA: a quick #Thread
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Background: the federal govt's Home Owners' Loan Corporation was a New Deal org aimed at helping people keep their homes post-Depression. Financially, it did pretty well - even turning a small profit
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trumanlibrary.gov/library/public…

But to "help" mortgage lenders, they generated maps of urban areas, color-coded by how "secure" neighborhoods would be for home loans. Here's the RVA map - guess what they based "security" on?
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This should be obvious, but to be clear: rather than look at important individual financials - credit history, outstanding debt, etc. - HOLC based broad maps on nabe's "detrimental influences" and "inhabitants," literally using the word "infiltration" to apply to race
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You may have seen these maps before, but have you really looked at how they were generated? A HOLC agent, in this case realtor J.D. Carneal, typed up the forms. Like, a dude had to literally type "Negroes are crowding out white men"
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[BTW, Carneal was from a prominent RVA family of architects and real estate folks; there's a Carneal Street in the East End, and a real estate firm still bears the name. Google shows lots of celebratory writing about fam w/o any mention of their assoc w/ redlining]
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My "favorite" note is from Randolph/Byrd Park, which was classified as "declining" because "the negroes of D-8 pass back and forth for access to the William Byrd Park which lies to the west". it's a bad nabe literally because black folk walk through it
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This was 1937, but it matters today, for so many reasons. Another @UR_DSL project shows how this redlining leads to environmental and health impacts (tree coverage, impervious surfaces, "heat islands," etc.) that persist today:
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storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1a945c…

Anyway, If anyone ever wants to know what "systemic" or "institutionalized" racism is, show them this map - racism infused into the basic rules we live by, with long-term consequences rippling through generations
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dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redli…