Redlining

[8] In the 1960s, sociologist John McKnight originally coined the term to describe the discriminatory practice in Chicago, Illinois of banks classifying certain neighborhoods as "hazardous," or not worthy of investment due to the racial makeup of their residents.

[13] The documented history of redlining in the United States is a manifestation of the historical systemic racism that has had wide-ranging impacts on American society, two examples being educational and housing inequality across racial groups.

It had its origins in sales practices of the National Association of Real Estate Boards and theories about race and property values codified by economists surrounding Richard T. Ely and his Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities, founded at the University of Wisconsin in 1920.

According to urban historian Bench Ansfield, the postwar advent of comprehensive homeowners' insurance was limited to the suburbs and withheld from neighborhoods of color in U.S. cities.

In 1974, Chicago's Metropolitan Area Housing Association (MAHA), made up of representatives of local organizations, succeeded in having the Illinois State Legislature pass laws mandating disclosure and outlawing redlining.

[47] The United States Department of Justice announced a $33 million settlement with Hudson City Savings Bank, which services New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, on September 24, 2015.

As U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman explained to Emily Badger for The Washington Post, "[i]f you lived in a majority-black or Hispanic neighborhood and you wanted to apply for a mortgage, Hudson City Savings Bank was not the place to go."

[50] On January 12, 2023, City National Bank of California agreed to pay $31,000,000 to resolve allegations of redlining from 2017 to at least 2020, brought by the United States Department of Justice.

[52] Founded in 1973, ShoreBank sought to combat racist lending practices in Chicago's African-American communities by providing financial services, especially mortgage loans, to local residents.

Formerly redlined neighborhoods in places like Los Angeles have been shown to be more likely to have a gang injunction issued against them, as the work of geographer Stefano Bloch and anthropologist Susan A. Phillips shows.

[82] Home-insurance agents may try to assess the ethnicity of a potential customer just by telephone, affecting what services they offer to inquiries about purchasing a home insurance policy.

There was documented overt discrimination in practices relating to residential housing—from the appraisal manuals which established an articulated "policy" of preferences based on race, religion and national origin.

The growth of subprime lending, higher cost loans to borrowers with flaws on their credit records, prior to the 2008 financial crisis, coupled with growing law enforcement activity in those areas, clearly showed a surge in manipulative practices.

Predatory loans are dangerous because they charge unreasonably higher rates and fees compared to the risk, trapping homeowners in unaffordable debt and often costing them their homes and life savings.

Wells Fargo, the largest residential home mortgage originator in the United States settled a lawsuit in 2012 after it was discovered they were using discriminatory lending practices against African-American and Hispanic borrowers between 2004 and 2009.

Redlined communities continued to be segregated by race and economic status as a result of this discriminatory strategy, which was based on racial demography and perceived risk for mortgage investment.

[97] A 2022 study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters found redlined areas in 202 US cities had higher levels of air pollution (nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter) in 2010.

[99] Professor Kyung Hwa Jung of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons wrote in 2022 on the legacy of residential redlining in American history and its implications for the temporal patterns of air pollution surrounding schools in New York City today.

[102] Kyung Hwa Jung's study came up with the same results, indicating that, compared to other areas, historically redlined communities in New York City had greater rates of Bback people, deprivation, socioeconomic vulnerability, and inferior youth opportunity.

In 1990, Robert Wallace wrote that the pattern of the AIDS outbreak during the 1980s was affected by the outcomes of a program of "planned shrinkage" directed at African-American and Hispanic communities.

It was implemented through systematic denial of municipal services, particularly fire protection resources, essential to maintain urban levels of population density and ensure community stability.

Wealth affords the privilege of living in a neighborhood or community with clean air, pure water, outdoor spaces and places for recreation and exercise, safe streets during the day and night, infrastructure that supports the growth of intergenerational wealth through access to good schools, healthy food, public transportation, and opportunities to connect, belong, and contribute to the surrounding community.

Wealth also provides stability of home as those with capital are not confined to the deteriorating housing stock that minority groups who were redlined were forced to try and rehabilitate without access to loans.

For example, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found non-redlined areas to have more favorable breast cancer outcomes among non-Latina white women.

The CDC points to discrimination within health care, education, criminal justice, housing, and finance, direct results of systematically subversive tactics like redlining which led to chronic and toxic stress that shaped social and economic factors for minority groups, increasing their risk for COVID-19.

Healthcare access is similarly limited by factors like a lack of public transportation, child care, and communication and language barriers which result from the spatial and economic isolation of minority communities from redlining.

Educational, income, and wealth gaps that result from this isolation mean that minority groups' limited access to the job market may force them to remain in fields that have a higher risk of exposure to the virus, without options to take time off.

Finally, a direct result of redlining is the overcrowding of minority groups into neighborhoods that do not boast adequate housing to sustain burgeoning populations, leading to crowded conditions that make prevention strategies for COVID-19 nearly impossible to implement.

This includes taking specific action to address the social determinants of building intergenerational wealth as well as confronting institutional racism within health systems themselves.

[141] Metzl and Hansen propose that the U.S. medical education system should train healthcare professionals to recognize the larger structural contexts and social and economic conditions that influence patient health outcomes, including the legacy of redlining.