Mapping Inequality - Redlining in New Deal America
The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a government-sponsored corporation created as part of the New Deal. The HOLC issued bonds and then used the bonds to purchase mortgage loans from lenders. Between 1933 and 1935, the HOLC made slightly more than one million loans. - But those loans were based on the analysis of the neighborhoods. This project demonstrates how the HOLC created area descriptions to help to organize the data they used to assign the grades. Among that information was the neighborhood's quality of housing, the recent history of sale and rent values, and, crucially, the racial and ethnic identity and class of residents that served as the basis of the neighborhood's grade. These maps and their accompanying documentation helped set the rules for nearly a century of real estate practice.
