Abstract
During the late 1930s, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) developed a series of area descriptions with color-coded maps of cities that summarized mortgage lending risk. We analyze the maps to explain the oft-noted fact that black neighborhoods overwhelmingly received the lowest rating. Our results suggest that racial bias in the construction of the HOLC maps can explain at most 4 to 20 percent of the observed concentration of black households in the lowest-rated zones. We also provide evidence that the Federal Housing Administration had its own mapping strategies when evaluating mortgages and relied relatively little on the HOLC maps.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1019-1056 |
Number of pages | 38 |
Journal | Journal of Economic History |
Volume | 83 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 16 2023 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- History
- Economics and Econometrics
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)