Understanding HOLC Maps and Their Lasting Impact

HOLC maps were a crucial tool in determining the value of homes and neighborhoods during the Great Depression.

Developed by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), these maps graded neighborhoods based on their desirability and risk.

The maps were used to determine the value of homes and the amount of mortgage insurance needed.

Each neighborhood was assigned a color-coded grade, with the most desirable neighborhoods receiving a "green" grade.

The HOLC maps had a lasting impact on the development of neighborhoods in the United States.

These maps often reflected racist attitudes and discriminatory practices of the time, leading to the segregation of neighborhoods.

The HOLC maps also had a lasting impact on the value of homes and the wealth of homeowners in these neighborhoods.

The HOLC maps are still studied by historians and urban planners today, providing valuable insights into the development of neighborhoods in the United States.

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The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in 1933 as a New Deal response to the greatest foreclosure crisis the United States had ever seen.

The HOLC bought distressed home mortgage loans from banks and borrowed money from the U.S. Treasury to restructure the loans so the homeowners could stay in their homes. From June 1933 to June 1936, when the HOLC's authority to make loans sunsetted, it refinanced roughly 1 million mortgages.

HOLC agents graded cities through a program that largely adopted a consistently white, elite standpoint or perspective. They assumed and insisted that the residency of African Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages.

The HOLC began to hire local real estate professionals to make what it called "residential security" maps of their cities in 1935. Each city was divided into many small areas, which were then evaluated for housing, environmental, social, and economic conditions.

The D areas on these maps, which were colored red, have come to be known as redlined. While the surveyors mostly focused on physical and environmental conditions, they were also told to consider the presence or "invasion" of "negro, foreign-born or lower grade" residents.

The HOLC maps were shared with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) but not with private lenders. Many people believe that the term redlining originated with those maps, based on the fact that the D areas were colored red.

Nobody knows exactly why the HOLC commissioned the maps. By the time the first maps were made, the HOLC was almost completely out of the lending business.

Consider reading: Holc Summary

Holc maps were used for urban planning, zoning, and development.

They helped city planners identify areas with high population growth and limited housing, which led to the creation of new neighborhoods.

Holc maps also pinpointed areas with high crime rates and poverty levels, allowing for targeted interventions.

By highlighting these areas, Holc maps facilitated more effective resource allocation and policy decisions.

The maps were often used in conjunction with other tools, such as aerial photography and field observations, to get a more comprehensive view of a city's needs.

Holc maps played a significant role in shaping the physical and social landscape of cities in the mid-20th century.

The HOLC maps revealed a stark reality about racial disparity in home lending. In 1935, African Americans made up only 13% of the US population but were denied mortgages at a rate of 98% in some areas.

Homeowners in predominantly black neighborhoods were more likely to have substandard homes, with 40% lacking indoor plumbing and 25% without electricity. This was partly due to discriminatory practices by lenders.

In some HOLC maps, neighborhoods with high concentrations of African Americans were labeled as "hazardous" or "undesirable", justifying discriminatory lending practices. The HOLC's own maps showed that many of these neighborhoods were actually decent, middle-class areas.

The HOLC maps also highlighted the significant disparities in home ownership rates between white and black Americans. In 1935, only 3.5% of African American families owned their own homes, compared to 43.6% of white families.

New research is reexamining the role of HOLC in redlining, and it's challenging our previous understanding of the issue. Historically, New Deal agencies did engage in discriminatory lending practices, but not in the way we thought.

The research reveals that HOLC maps were not the sole cause of redlining, but rather one part of a larger system of discriminatory practices. By concentrating public housing and highways in redlined communities, White-run city government agencies actively protected and preserved greenlined neighborhoods.

This phenomenon is known as "opportunity hoarding", where wealthy White neighborhoods were structurally advantaged and resourced, while Black neighborhoods were intentionally concentrated with poverty.

New research is reexamining the role of HOLC in redlining, and it's challenging our previous assumptions.

New Deal agencies did engage in discriminatory lending practices, but not in the way we thought. They were not the primary culprits for entrenching and expanding redlining after 1940.

The FHLBB and FHA were the primary culprits, with the FHLBB ranking as a primary culprit for entrenching and expanding redlining after 1940. The FHLBB parroted the narrative that "the infiltration of lower income families" caused neighborhood decline.

The FHLBB and HOLC sponsored a cosmetic home makeover project in an all-White, greenlined community in Baltimore City, but failed to finance high-quality, subsidized, low-density housing in redlined communities. The FHLBB did not oppose racial discrimination as a matter of stated policy until 1961.

Gioielli's core argument is that HOLC maps cannot be a primary culprit of ongoing redlining since HOLC and its officials are long dead and gone. However, it was the FHLBB that commissioned HOLC maps, hosted security map workshops, and supported home improvement programs in greenlined neighborhoods.

Broaden your view: Usda Home Loan Eligibility Map

The FHLBB/FHLBS is a primary culprit responsible for introducing race-based neighborhood rankings into the financial system and lifting greenlined areas while neither remediating nor repairing the damage it inflicted in redlined areas. The FHA metastasized urban apartheid by providing land planning guidance to suburban developers, underwriting racially segregated subdivisions, and fostering urban sprawl outside cities.

HOLC and FHA maps featured the same core logic, with the same grading for D communities in 85.6 percent of census tracts. This helps to explain how FHA maps drawn after 1940 would later reify and reinforce the color codes found on HOLC maps produced between 1936 and 1940.

It's amazing how quickly things can change in the world of research and reexamination. The 1960s saw a significant shift in the way scientists approached their work, with the publication of Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" in 1962.

The book challenged the traditional view of scientific progress as a steady accumulation of knowledge, instead arguing that scientific revolutions occur when new discoveries contradict existing theories. This idea resonated with many scientists, who began to question the status quo.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a rise in the use of statistical methods to analyze data, with the development of new techniques such as regression analysis and hypothesis testing. This led to a greater emphasis on quantitative research methods.

The introduction of the internet in the 1990s revolutionized the way researchers accessed and shared information, making it easier to collaborate and conduct research across geographical boundaries. This had a profound impact on the way research was conducted.

The publication of the "National Research Act" in 1974 marked a significant turning point in the history of research in the United States, requiring researchers to obtain informed consent from human subjects and establish Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to oversee research protocols.

The Holc maps are a remarkable tool for understanding the history of urban planning and development.

Holc maps were created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s to assess the risk of mortgage lending in various neighborhoods.

These maps were used to determine the creditworthiness of borrowers and to inform HOLC's lending decisions, with areas deemed "high risk" receiving lower credit ratings.

The maps reveal a stark pattern of racial and socioeconomic segregation, with predominantly African American neighborhoods being classified as "hazardous" or "undesirable."

This classification system had a lasting impact on the development of urban areas, perpetuating segregation and limiting access to credit and resources for marginalized communities.

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Maps can be morphed to visualize changes over time, allowing researchers to track shifts in population density, land use, or environmental factors.

These morphed maps can be created using geographic information systems (GIS) software, which enables the analysis of spatial data.

Quantitative analyses can be performed on morphed maps to identify trends and patterns.

By applying statistical models to the data, researchers can isolate the impact of specific variables on the changes observed in the maps.

For example, a study might use regression analysis to determine the relationship between temperature changes and shifts in vegetation patterns.

This type of analysis can provide valuable insights into the complex relationships between environmental factors and their effects on ecosystems.

Researchers can also use quantitative analyses to validate the accuracy of morphed maps by comparing them to ground-truth data.

Ground-truth data is collected through field observations or surveys, providing a basis for evaluating the accuracy of the morphed maps.

The evidence of redlining is clear in the maps created by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1937.

These maps, known as Redlining Maps, assigned grades to residential neighborhoods based on their "mortgage security."

The grades were determined by HOLC staff members using data from local real estate professionals, including lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers.

Neighborhoods with the highest grade, "A", were considered minimal risks for banks and other mortgage lenders, while those with the lowest grade, "D", were considered "hazardous."

Curious to learn more? Check out: Usda Mortgage Map Pa

The maps were color-coded, with green indicating "A" neighborhoods and red indicating "D" neighborhoods.

The grades were based on factors such as the neighborhood's quality of housing, recent sale and rent values, and the racial and ethnic identity and class of residents.

HOLC agents largely adopted a white, elite standpoint when grading neighborhoods, assuming that the residency of African Americans and immigrants compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages.

The HOLC's Underwriting Manual, written by Frederick Babcock, reinforced this view, stating that the presence of "inharmonious racial groups" would lower land values and reduce the desirability of residential areas.

Holc maps have been used in various real-world applications, such as the 1930s US housing market analysis, where they helped identify areas of high and low housing values.

In the case of the 1930s US housing market analysis, Holc maps were used to assess the risk of mortgage default in different neighborhoods.

Holc maps have also been used in urban planning to identify areas of high population density and poverty, such as in the 1930s Harlem, New York City, where they helped identify areas of high population density and poverty.

The maps were often used in conjunction with other data, such as census data, to gain a more complete understanding of the social and economic conditions in different areas.

Ohio cities have a wealth of information available in the form of redlining maps. These maps were created to display financial demographic data and are now available for public viewing.

Some of the cities in Ohio that have redlining maps available include Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Columbus, Dayton, Hamilton, Lima, Lorain, Portsmouth, Springfield, Toledo, Warren, and Youngstown.

These maps can be accessed by clicking on the links provided for each city. For example, the redlining map for Akron is 21.8 MB, while the area descriptions for the city are 5,849 KB.

Here's a breakdown of the redlining maps for some of the Ohio cities:

These maps provide valuable insights into the financial history of Ohio cities and can be a useful resource for researchers, historians, and anyone interested in learning more about the state's urban development.

Scott Markley converted eight key variables from 129 cities into a tabular format, making complex data more accessible.

These variables include the Black population percentage, "foreign-born" population percentage and group, family income, occupation class, average building age, home repair status, and mortgage availability.

Scott's work in making data more analyzable is crucial in understanding the impact of redlining.

The cities analyzed in Scott's study include Hartford, Connecticut, and St. Louis, Missouri, among others.

Here are the 15 cities analyzed in Scott's study: