The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities
Amy Hillier, "Redlining in Philadelphia," in Anne Kelly Knowles, ed., Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History (Redlands: ESRI Press, 2002): 79-92.

SYNOPSIS:

Hillier uses GIS to bring more precision to an investigation of mortgage lending in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s. She tests historians' arguments that the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation helped cause disinvestment in low-income, mixed-use areas of American cities, and in the process institutionalized an already existing practice of "redlining." Credit risk was determined by mapping on the basis of neighborhoods. Hillier found that "neither the security grade nor the property's proximity to a red area explain differences in the total number of loans it received or in the loan-to-value ratio." Private lenders, she found, did not categorically refuse to lend to those within or near the red lines.

EXCERPT:

"Redlining during the middle decades of the twentieth century was a more complicated process than many historians have appreciated, in part because the Home Owners' Loan Corporation was neither the only nor the first lending organization to make maps with symbolic red lines." (88)


Citation: Key = H067
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