>> the Home Owners Loan Corporation drew maps grading areas from "desirable" to "hazardous" --- the "hazardous" neighborhoods were demarcated with a red line, hence the name. Lenders refused financial services to any family in the redlined neighborhood.
The HOLC did not use the redlined maps to deny loans. For one thing, they couldn't have, the HOLC was a temporary program intended to deal with the Great Depression and the maps weren't completed until the HOLC had made 90% of the loans it ever made. And second, it did make loans in the redlined areas, and it made a higher percentage of loans to black borrowers than other lenders.
The HOLC did share the maps with the explicitly racist FHA, but the FHA didn't use the maps to deny loans. It couldn't have, the FHA insured loans, it didn't make them. It also focused on financing new construction, the redlined areas were already built up. And when it did refuse to finance black borrowers, it appears to have used block by block census data, not the HOLC maps. Outside of the FHA, it doesn't appear that the HOLC shared their maps with private lenders.
If you're using the HOLC maps to measure the effect of something, you're measuring something other than the effect of lending decisions. If the HOLC map of Chicago is a map of Chicago violent crime that is correlation rather than causation. There must be other factors that explain the correlation.
Are you seriously attempting a first-principles argument that redlining didn't actually happen (or, "it happened, but it was just some lines on a map that didn't mean anything")? Because that's the only way I can find to read this comment.
Did the HOLC draw maps with red lines on them around neighborhoods where they thought mortgage loans were going to go bad? Yes.
Were those maps used to deny loans in the areas with red lines around them? Certainly not by the HOLC, and almost certainly not by the FHA or private lenders.
Was there racial discrimination by the HOLC? Maybe. Less than with other mortgage lenders of the day.
Was there racial discrimination by the FHA? Yes. Mostly block by block based on census data and New Deal projects that collected data. They did make their own maps, but that's hard to research since those maps were mostly destroyed in the 1960's. The ones that survive don't match the HOLC maps. There's some overlap.
Were there racial covenants? Until 1948, yes, that's not redlining though.
Do the maps made by the HOLC in the 1930's explain violent crime in Chicago in the 2020's? No. Not at all.
"Was there racial discrimination by the HOLC? Maybe."
Yeah. Ok. They literally cited the presence of racial covenants in neighborhoods as a reason to rate them more highly. There are HOLC maps that reference neighborhoods as "threatened by negro encroachment".
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously with this stuff?
Nah, I don't think I'm going to continue trying to re-establish whether redlining was racist or not with someone who just said they're not sure the Home Owners' Loan Corp was itself racist. I've, you know, been on message boards before; I know how this conversation ends: with some weird appeal to phrenology, most likely.
You can of course content yourself with your victory on this thread. It'll be valuable currency in your effort to convince the world that redlining was overblown, and likely of little long term impact on American cities.
The HOLC did not use the redlined maps to deny loans. For one thing, they couldn't have, the HOLC was a temporary program intended to deal with the Great Depression and the maps weren't completed until the HOLC had made 90% of the loans it ever made. And second, it did make loans in the redlined areas, and it made a higher percentage of loans to black borrowers than other lenders.
The HOLC did share the maps with the explicitly racist FHA, but the FHA didn't use the maps to deny loans. It couldn't have, the FHA insured loans, it didn't make them. It also focused on financing new construction, the redlined areas were already built up. And when it did refuse to finance black borrowers, it appears to have used block by block census data, not the HOLC maps. Outside of the FHA, it doesn't appear that the HOLC shared their maps with private lenders.
If you're using the HOLC maps to measure the effect of something, you're measuring something other than the effect of lending decisions. If the HOLC map of Chicago is a map of Chicago violent crime that is correlation rather than causation. There must be other factors that explain the correlation.