Editing Home Owners' Loan Corporation (section)

==Redlining==
[[File:Brooklyn,_New_York_HOLC_Redlining_Map.jpg|thumb|Brooklyn, [[New York City|NY]] HOLC [[redlining]] Map|328x328px]]HOLC is often cited as the originator of mortgage [[redlining]].<ref>{{Cite news|title=In U.S. Cities, The Health Effects Of Past Housing Discrimination Are Plain To See|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/19/911909187/in-u-s-cities-the-health-effects-of-past-housing-discrimination-are-plain-to-see|access-date=2020-12-13|website=NPR.org|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-09-02|title=Racist housing policies have created some oppressively hot neighborhoods|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/racist-housing-policies-created-some-oppressively-hot-neighborhoods/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200903005409/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/racist-housing-policies-created-some-oppressively-hot-neighborhoods/|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 3, 2020|access-date=2020-12-13|website=Science|language=en}}</ref>[https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining HOLC maps]<ref>{{Citation|last1=Connolly|first1=N. D. B.|title=Mapping inequality|date=2018-01-19|work=The Routledge Companion to Spatial History|pages=502–524|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781315099781|last2=Winling|first2=LaDale|last3=Nelson|first3=Robert K.|last4=Marciano|first4=Richard|doi=10.4324/9781315099781-29}}</ref> generated during the 1930s to assess credit-worthiness were color-coded by mortgage security risk, with majority African-American areas disproportionately likely to be marked in red indicating designation as "hazardous."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nelson |first1=Robert K. |title=Mapping Inequality |url=https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/41.7665/-72.6830&opacity=0.8&text=about&city=east-hartford-ct |website=Mapping Inequality |publisher=University of Richmond}}</ref> These maps were made as part of HOLC's City Survey project that ran from late 1935 until 1940.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Michney|first=Todd M|date=November 2022|title= How the City Survey's Redlining Maps Were Made: A Closer Look at HOLC's Mortgagee Rehabilitation Division|url=https://doi.org/10.1177/15385132211013361|journal=Journal of Planning History|volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=316–344 |doi=10.1177/15385132211013361|s2cid=236560695}}</ref> Perhaps ironically, HOLC had issued refinancing loans to African American homeowners in its initial "rescue" phase before it started making its redlining maps.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Michney|first1=Todd M|last2=Winling |first2=LaDale|date=January 2020|title=New Perspectives on New Deal Housing Policy: Explicating and Mapping HOLC Loans to African Americans|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096144218819429|journal=Journal of Urban History|volume=46|issue=1|pages=150–180|doi=10.1177/0096144218819429|s2cid=149628183|issn=0096-1442}}</ref> The racist attitudes and language found in HOLC appraisal sheets and Residential Security Maps created by the HOLC gave federal support to real-estate practices that helped segregate American housing throughout the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Freund |first1=David M.P. |title= Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-226-26276-5}}</ref>

The effects of redlining, as noted in HOLC maps, endures to the present time. A study released in 2018 found that 74 percent of neighborhoods that HOLC graded as high-risk or "hazardous" are low-to-moderate income neighborhoods today, while 64 percent of the neighborhoods graded "hazardous" are minority neighborhoods today.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mitchell |first1=Bruce |title=HOLC "redlining" maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality |url=https://ncrc.org/holc/ |website=National Community Reinvestment Coalition|date=2018-03-20 }}</ref> "It's as if some of these places have been trapped in the past, locking neighborhoods into concentrated poverty," said Jason Richardson, director of research at the NCRC, a consumer advocacy group.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jan |first1=Tracy |title=Redlining was banned 50 years ago. It's still hurting minorities today. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/ |newspaper=Washington Post}}</ref>
[[File:Oshkosh,_Wisconsin_HOLC_Redlining_Map.jpg|thumb|Oshkosh, [[Wisconsin|WI]]  HOLC redlining Map|287x287px]]
A 2020 study in the ''American Sociological Review'' found that HOLC led to substantial and persistent increases in racial residential segregation.<ref name=":0" /> A 2021 study in the ''American Economic Journal'' found that areas classified as high-risk on HOLC maps became increasingly segregated by race during the next 30–35 years, and suffered long-run declines in home ownership, house values, and credit scores.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Aaronson|first1=Daniel|last2=Hartley|first2=Daniel|last3=Mazumder|first3=Bhashkar|date=2021|title=The Effects of the 1930s HOLC "Redlining" Maps|url=https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190414|journal=American Economic Journal: Economic Policy|language=en|volume=13|issue=4|pages=355–392|doi=10.1257/pol.20190414|hdl=10419/200568|s2cid=204505153|issn=1945-7731}}</ref> HOLC's evaluation of neighborhoods in the 1930s correlates with "health, employment, education, and income measures" in these same neighborhoods decades later.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Anna G. |last2=Guikema |first2=Seth D. |last3=Logan |first3=Tom M. |title=Urban population characteristics and their correlation with historic discriminatory housing practices |journal=Applied Geography |date=July 2021 |volume=132 |pages=102445 |doi=10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102445|s2cid=236261789 }}</ref>

Since the rediscovery of HOLC documents in the 1980s, there has been considerable debate about the exact role of HOLC and its maps in redlining: even as the neighborhood evaluations largely align with race and with ongoing disparities, it is unclear exactly how much of an effect HOLC itself had.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Markley |first1=Scott |title=Federal ‘redlining’ maps: A critical reappraisal |journal=Urban Studies |date=July 7, 2023 |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=195-213 |doi=10.1177/00420980231182336 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00420980231182336}}</ref> According to a paper by economic historian [[Price V. Fishback]] and three co-authors, issued in 2021,<ref name="NBER29244">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.nber.org/papers/w29244|doi = 10.3386/w29244|title = New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s|year = 2021|last1 = Fishback|first1 = Price|last2 = Rose|first2 = Jonathan|last3 = Snowden|first3 = Kenneth|last4 = Storrs|first4 = Thomas|hdl = 10419/251011|s2cid = 239123963|journal=Journal of Urban Economics}}</ref> the blame placed on HOLC is misplaced. Far from "ironically" issuing a few loans to African-Americans in an "initial phase" and then becoming a major promoter of redlining, HOLC actually refinanced mortgage loans for African-Americans in near proportion to the share of African-American homeowners. The pattern of loans had basically no relationship to the "redlining" maps because the program to create the maps did not even begin until after 90% of HOLC refinancing agreements had already been concluded.

However, the HOLC shared their maps with the other major New Deal housing program, the [[Federal Housing Administration]]. But, the FHA already had its own discriminatory program of systematically rating urban neighborhoods and the HOLC used the FHA's discriminatory guidelines for its maps.<ref>{{cite book |title=Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act With Revisions to February 1938 |title-link=National Housing Act of 1934 |publisher=[[Federal Housing Administration]] |location=Washington, D.C. |chapter=Part II, Section 9, Rating of Location |quote=Recommended restrictions should include provision for the following: Prohibition of the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended [...] Schools should be appropriate to the needs of the new community and they should not be attended in large numbers by inharmonious racial groups |chapter-url=http://wbhsi.net/~wendyplotkin/DeedsWeb/fha38.html |access-date=2023-06-07 |archive-date=2012-12-20 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121220101009/http://wbhsi.net/~wendyplotkin/DeedsWeb/fha38.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

As for private lenders, though [[Kenneth T. Jackson]]'s claim that they relied on the HOLC's maps to implement their own discriminatory practices has been widely repeated, the evidence is weak that private lenders had access to the maps.<ref name="NBER29244"/>{{rp|page=10-11|quote=Jackson (1985, p. 203) has stated that private lenders had access to the HOLC’s maps, and many scholars have repeated this statement. But Hillier (2003b) provides many reasons to seriously doubt this claim...Michney (2021) provides evidence from internal HOLC correspondence about how it refrained from sharing completed maps with its consultants. The finding aid for the HOLC City Surveys at the National Archives states that “none of these maps have ever been given to private interests.”}} By contrast, it is well documented that private lenders understood which neighborhoods the FHA favored and disfavored; suburban greenfield developers often explicitly advertised the FHA-insurability of their properties in ads for prospective buyers. Redlining was an established practice in the real estate industry before the federal government had any significant role in it; to the extent that any federal agency is to blame for perpetuating the practice, it is the Federal Housing Administration and not the Home Owners' Loan Corporation.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.governing.com/context/redlining-didnt-happen-quite-the-way-we-thought-it-did|title = Redlining Didn't Happen Quite the Way We Thought It Did|date = 21 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="NBER29244" />