Site 0153 - Where Waterlines and Redlines Cross

Fig. 1 - IDEM Site 0153 map (2018) & "Mapping Inequality"'s Redlining map (1937)

Scroll between the images above, and you'll notice that nearly every polluting industrial site resides in a "C" or "D" rated neighborhood on the 1937 maps ("C" meant that the neighborhood was "definitely declining" while "D" meant that the neighborhood was "undesirable") (Nelson & Winling et. al, 2018). With eighty years between them, why are the 1937 maps such accurate predictions of future environmental degradation? To answer that question, we've got to explore the financial practice of redlining.

In 1933, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was founded by the U.S. Federal government to refinance mortgages that were in danger of default after a 1929 crash in the housing market (Roosevelt Institute, 2012). In pursuit of this goal, the HOLC recruited "mortgage lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers to create maps...that color coded credit worthiness and risk on neighborhood and metropolitan areas" (Nelson & Winling et. al, 2018). From behind the desk that these maps were drafted, this may have seemed all well and good; it was a necessary step to ensure that mortgage money was only given to "worthy" creditors. But several key flaws caused devastating consequences.

The most glaring of these flaws was poor evaluation criteria. When the 1937 HOLC maps were drafted, it was a widely held belief that "Negroes depress property value" (Castellucci, 1978). As a result, those who drafted the HOLC maps declared areas with high levels of African American population to be "undesirable" neighborhoods. In fact, of all Indianapolis neighborhoods rated "A" or "B", only one of them had more than 0% African Americans...only "two negro families" (Nelson & Winling et. al, 2018).

Fig. 2 - Area around St. Phillips Church - the only "Still desirable" Area with African Americans living it in (HOLC 1937)

Another major flaw was the resulting spiral that "C" or "D" neighborhoods experienced. If you were looking to buy a home in a "C" or "D" neighborhood in the 1930's or 40's, it was very unlikely that financial institutions would approve a mortgage to buy a house (Nelson & Winling et. al, 2018). This has a two-fold effect on a neighborhood: (1) investment was prevented from entering the housing market and (2) homebuyers in the area were stranded, unable to sell their home and leave the area (Castellucci, 1978).

A final flaw was unequal application of these criteria. At the time of this HOLC map (1937), many of these "D" neighborhoods were "segregated but racially balanced" (The Polis Center, n.d.). In addition to being rated low because of African American presence, these neighborhoods were rated "D" for heavy industry and railroads that were inconvenient for residents. Most of these segregated neighborhoods include a note saying something like "local institutions will make loans on better class institutions in this neighborhood" (emphasis added) (Nelson & Winling et. al, 2018). In other words, Caucasians were given the ability to escape this spiral by selling to another family, but African-Americans were left stranded in an area that would be subject to increasing financial disinvestment.

Despite this blatant racial discrimination, the northwestern area of Indianapolis (including Riverside) remained "segregated but racially balanced" until the 1950s (The Polis Center, n.d.). So what changed this balanced neighborhood into one that is now only 10% Caucasian?

If the flaws of redlining created the kindling for discrimination, predatory lenders and developers were the spark that set them off. Read the next blog post to find out how.

Sources Cited (in order of appearance) 

1. Indiana Department of Environmental Management. (2018). Site 0153 Potential Responsible Party (PRP). [online] Available at: https://www.in.gov/idem/cleanups/pages/site0153/map.html [Accessed 17 Nov. 2018].
2. Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed November 26, 2018, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=13/39.7960/-86.1821&opacity=0.8&city=indianapolis-in&area=D26&sort=53&text=bibliograph.
3. "Home Owners Loan Corporation - Roosevelt Institute". 2012. Roosevelt Institute. Accessed November 26 2018. http://rooseveltinstitute.org/home-owners-loan-corporation/.
4. Castellucci, John. “Redlining in Indianapolis”. Indiana University School of Journalism. 1978. 
5. The Polis Center. (n.d.). UNWA - Narrative History. [online] Available at: http://www.polis.iupui.edu/RUC/Neighborhoods/UNWA/UNWANarrative.htm#5f [Accessed 17 Nov. 2018].