The practice of redlining was codified by a series of maps created as part of the New Deal by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which evaluated the mortgage lending risk of neighborhoods.

Most of the text in this description originally appeared on the Mapping Inequality Website. Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers,

"HOLC staff members, using data and evaluations organized by local real estate professionals--lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers--in each city, assigned grades to residential neighborhoods that reflected their "mortgage security" that would then be visualized on color-coded maps. Neighborhoods receiving the highest grade of "A"--colored green on the maps--were deemed minimal risks for banks and other mortgage lenders when they were determining who should received loans and which areas in the city were safe investments. Those receiving the lowest grade of "D," colored red, were considered "hazardous."

Conservative, responsible lenders, in HOLC judgment, would "refuse to make loans in these areas [or] only on a conservative basis." 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. "

HOLC agents grading cities through this program largely "adopted a consistently white, elite standpoint or perspective. HOLC assumed and insisted that the residency of African Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages. In this they followed the guidelines set forth by Frederick Babcock, the central figure in early twentieth-century real estate appraisal standards, in his Underwriting Manual: "The infiltration of inharmonious racial groups ... tend to lower the levels of land values and to lessen the desirability of residential areas."

These grades were a tool for redlining: making it difficult or impossible for people in certain areas to access mortgage financing and thus become homeowners. Redlining directed both public and private capital to native-born white families and away from African American and immigrant families. As homeownership was arguably the most significant means of intergenerational wealth building in the United States in the twentieth century, these redlining practices from eight decades ago had long-term effects in creating wealth inequalities that we still see today. Mapping Inequality, we hope, will allow and encourage you to grapple with this history of government policies contributing to inequality."

Data was copied from the Mapping Inequality Website for communities in Western Pennsylvania where data was available. These communities include Altoona, Erie, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, and New Castle. Data included original and georectified images, scans of the neighborhood descriptions, and digital map layers. Data here was downloaded on June 9, 2020.

MAPPING INEQUALITY Redlining in New Deal America Atlanta How Owners' Loan Corporation 1938 Mapping Inequality introduces viewer to the records of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation on a scale that is unprecedented. Here you can browse more than 150 interactive maps and thousands of "area descriptions." These materials afford an extraordinary view of the contours of wealth and racial inequality in Depression-era American cities and insights into discriminatory policies and practices that so profoundly shaped cities that we feel their legacy to this day.https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/

The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a U.S. federal agency that graded mortgage investment risk of neighborhoods across the U.S. between 1935 and 1940. HOLC residential security maps standardized neighborhood risk appraisal methods that included race and ethnicity, pioneering the institutional logic of residential “redlining.” The Mapping Inequality Project digitized the HOLC mortgage security risk maps from the 1930s. We overlaid the HOLC maps with 2010 and 2020 census tracts for 142 cities across the U.S. using ArcGIS and determined the proportion of HOLC residential security grades contained within the boundaries. We assigned a numerical value to each HOLC risk category as follows: 1 for “A” grade, 2 for “B” grade, 3 for “C” grade, and 4 for “D” grade. We calculated a historic redlining score from the summed proportion of HOLC residential security grades multiplied by a weighting factor based on area within each census tract. A higher score means greater redlining of the census tract. Continuous historic redlining score, assessing the degree of “redlining,” as well as 4 equal interval divisions of redlining, can be linked to existing data sources by census tract identifier allowing for one form of structural racism in the housing market to be assessed with a variety of outcomes. The 2010 files are set to census 2010 tract boundaries. The 2020 files use the new census 2020 tract boundaries, reflecting the increase in the number of tracts from 12,888 in 2010, to 13,488 in 2020. Use the 2010 HRS with decennial census 2010 or ACS 2010-2019 data. As of publication (10/15/2020) decennial census 2020 data for the P1 (population) and H1 (housing) files are available from census.

From:Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed May 26, 2021

Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) Redlining maps were developed between 1935-1940 to denote credit-worthiness and risk on neighborhood and metropolitan levels. This in turn produced a map of racial inequalities across the United States. Data clipped to focus on Gateway Cities.KeyGreen is A "Best"Blue is B "Still Desirable"Yellow is C "Definitely Declining"Red is D "Hazardous" (Redline)

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was established in 1933 by the U.S Congress to refinance mortgages in default and prevent foreclosures. In 1935 they created residential security maps for 239 cities to indicate the level of security for real-estate investments. The maps were graded such as the newest areas, which were considered desirable for lending received a "Type A" grade. These areas were primarily wealthy suburbs on the outskirts of town. Still Desirable neighborhoods were given a "Type B" grade and older neighborhoods were given a "Type C" grade and considered Declining. Lastly "Type D" neighborhoods were regarded as most risky for mortgage lending.If you are citing Mapping Inequality or acknowledge the source of any of the following data, we recommend the following format using the Chicago Manual of Style.Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed September 16, 2020, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/[YOUR VIEW].

The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a New Deal era program that graded neighborhoods based on perceived loan risk, but largely based on immigrant status and populations of color. Affluent areas were often graded as “A” or “Best” due to the low perceived risk of loan default. The riskiest grade was “D” or “Hazardous” and were predominantly communities of color and immigrant neighborhoods. These practices, while banned in 1968, have been linked to significant and increasing economic and demographic disparities through time. We are now also finding that these redlined areas are also associated with more extreme urban heat island effects, and that this is likely due to their lack of tree canopy and greater impervious surface (things like asphalt and cement roads) percentage. A recent paper by Hoffman et al. (2020) has connected these borrowing practices with the resulting impacts on local climate impacts along with human health. This map includes the following information for U.S. city neighborhoods:HOLC Grade (from the University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab)Average land surface temperature difference from citywide HOLC normal (reported in Hoffman et al., 2020)Tree cover percentage (from the National Land Cover Database)Impervious surface percentage (from the National Land Cover Database)Demographic information (from the American Community Survey)

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was established in 1933 by the U.S Congress to refinance mortgages in default and prevent foreclosures. In 1935 they created residential security maps for 239 cities to indicate the level of security for real-estate investments. The maps were graded such as the newest areas, which were considered desirable for lending received a "Type A" grade. These areas were primarily wealthy suburbs on the outskirts of town. Still Desirable neighborhoods were given a "Type B" grade and older neighborhoods were given a "Type C" grade and considered Declining. Lastly "Type D" neighborhoods were regarded as most risky for mortgage lending.If you are citing Mapping Inequality or acknowledge the source of any of the following data, we recommend the following format using the Chicago Manual of Style.Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed September 16, 2020, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/[YOUR VIEW].

1930's Neighborhood Redlining Grade (ESRI Living Atlas, 2022). The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in the New Deal Era and trained many home appraisers in the 1930s. The HOLC created a neighborhood ranking system infamously known today as redlining. Local real estate developers and appraisers in over 200 cities assigned grades to residential neighborhoods. These maps and neighborhood ratings set the rules for decades of real estate practices. The grades ranged from A to D. A was traditionally colored in green, B was traditionally colored in blue, C was traditionally colored in yellow, and D was traditionally colored in red. A (Best): Always upper- or upper-middle-class White neighborhoods that HOLC defined as posing minimal risk for banks and other mortgage lenders, as they were "ethnically homogeneous" and had room to be further developed.B (Still Desirable): Generally nearly or completely White, U.S. -born neighborhoods that HOLC defined as "still desirable" and sound investments for mortgage lenders.C (Declining): Areas where the residents were often working-class and/or first or second generation immigrants from Europe. These areas often lacked utilities and were characterized by older building stock.D (Hazardous): Areas here often received this grade because they were "infiltrated" with "undesirable populations" such as Jewish, Asian, Mexican, and Black families. These areas were more likely to be close to industrial areas and to have older housing.For more detailed information use this link.

This dataset is refreshed on a weekly basis from the datasets the team works on daily.Last update date: 20 November 2025.National Highways Operational Highway Boundary (RedLine) maps out the land belonging to the highway for the whole Strategic Road Network (SRN). It comprises two layers; one being the an outline and another showing the registration status / category of land of land that makes up the boundary. Due to the process involved in creating junctions with local highway authority (LHA) roads, land in this dataset may represent LHA highway (owned by National Highways but the responsibility of the LHA to maintain). Surplus land or land held for future projects does not form part of this dataset.The highway boundary is derived from:Ordnance Survey Mastermap Topography,HM Land Registry National Polygon Service (National Highway titles only), andplots researched and digitised during the course of the RedLine Boundary Project.The boundary is split into categories describing the decisions made for particular plots of land. These categories are as follows:Auto-RedLine category is for plots created from an automated process using Ordnance Survey MasterMap Topography as a base. Land is not registered under National Highways' name. For example, but not limited to, unregistered ‘ancient’ highway vested in Highways England, or bridge carrying highways over a rail line.NH Title within RedLine category is for plots created from Land Registry Cadastral parcels whose proprietor is National Highways or a predecessor. Land in this category is within the highway boundary (audited) or meets a certain threshold by the algorithm.NH Title outside RedLine category is for plots created in the same way as above but these areas are thought to be outside the highway boundary. Where the Confidence is Low, land in this category is yet to be audited. Where the Confidence is High, land in this category has been reviewed and audited as outside our operational boundary.National Highways (Technician) Data category is for plots created by National Highways, digitised land parcels relating to highway land that is not registered, not yet registered or un-registerable.Road in Tunnel category, created using tunnel outlines from Ordnance Survey MasterMap Topography data. These represent tunnels on Highways England’s network. Land is not registered under National Highways' name, but land above the tunnel may be in National Highways’ title. Please refer to the definitive land ownership records held at HM Land Registry.The process attribute details how the decision was made for the particular plot of land. These are as follows:Automated category denotes data produced by an automated process. These areas are yet to be audited by the company.Audited category denotes data that has been audited by the company.Technician Data (Awaiting Audit) category denotes data that was created by National Highways but is yet to be audited and confirmed as final.The confidence attribute details how confident you can be in the decision. This attribute is derived from both the decisions made during the building of the underlying automated dataset as well as whether the section has been researched and/or audited by National Highways staff. These are as follows:High category denotes land that has a high probability of being within the RedLine boundary. These areas typically are audited or are features that are close to or on the highway.Moderate category denotes land that is likely to be within the highway boundary but is subject to change once the area has been audited.Low category denotes land that is less likely to be within the highway boundary. These plots typically represent Highways England registered land that the automated process has marked as outside the highway boundary.Please note that this dataset is indicative only. For queries about this dataset please contact the GIS and Research Team.

This product has been archived in accordance with Federal Grant Compliance and is no longer actively updated. The site remains accessible for historical reference purposes.Disclaimer: This application is a DRAFT and is still under development. Data source: Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redliningThe Home Owners Loan CorporationThe Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in 1933. The HOLC created a neighborhood ranking system infamously known today as redlining. Local real estate developers and appraisers in over 200 cities assigned grades to residential neighborhoods. These maps and neighborhood ratings set the rules for decades of real estate practices. The grades ranged from A to D. A was traditionally colored in green, B was traditionally colored in blue, C was traditionally colored in yellow, and D was traditionally colored in red. Grading:A (Best): Always upper- or upper-middle-class White neighborhoods that HOLC defined as posing minimal risk for banks and other mortgage lenders, as they were "ethnically homogeneous" and had room to be further developed.B (Still Desirable): Generally nearly or completely White, U.S. -born neighborhoods that HOLC defined as "still desirable" and sound investments for mortgage lenders.C (Declining): Areas where the residents were often working-class and/or first or second generation immigrants from Europe. These areas often lacked utilities and were characterized by older building stock.D (Hazardous): Areas here often received this grade because they were "infiltrated" with "undesirable populations" such as Jewish, Asian, Mexican, and Black families. These areas were more likely to be close to industrial areas and to have older housing.Year: 2023Provider: Nelson, Robert K., LaDale Winling, et al. "Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America." Edited by Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers. American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History, 2023. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining.

Redlining Los Angeles, Tile 1. From Richmond DSL

Home ownership persists as the primary way that families build wealth. Housing researchers and advocates often discuss the racial home ownership gap, particularly for Black and Hispanic households (Urban Institute, Pew Hispanic Center). Historical policies such as redlining, steering, and municipal underbounding have effects that stay with us today.This map shows the overall home ownership rate and the home ownership rate by race/ethnicity of householder in a chart in the pop-up. Map is multi-scale showing data for state, county, and tract.This map uses these hosted feature layers containing the most recent American Community Survey data. These layers are part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas, and are updated every year when the American Community Survey releases new estimates, so values in the map always reflect the newest data available.

Visit Mapping Inequality for full details.History of this spatial dataThe majority of this dataset is derived from maps made by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a New Deal agency. Using data and evaluations gathered from local real estate professionals, HOLC created color-coded maps for more than 200 American cities. The maps used four colors to represent the “security,” or the determined relative riskiness of mortgage lending, for residential areas of each city.Green areas on the maps were called "A," "First Grade," or "Best" and were considered to be safest for loans. These areas were typically populated with wealthy, white residents that were born in the United States.Blue areas were called "B," "Second Grade," or "Still Desirable". Yellow areas were called "C," "Third Grade," or "Definitely Declining".Red areas were called "D," "Fourth Grade," or "Hazardous". HOLC recommended lenders "refuse to make loans in these areas [or] only on a conservative basis." These areas typically overlapped with Black and immigrant communities, which usually had lower incomes.These grades were a tool for redlining: making it difficult or impossible for people in certain areas to access mortgage financing and thus become homeowners. Redlining directed both public and private capital to native-born white families and away from African American and immigrant families. As homeownership was arguably the most significant means of intergenerational wealth building in the United States in the twentieth century, these redlining practices from eight decades ago had long-term effects in creating wealth inequalities that we still see today.This dataset also includes spatial data for more than 100 municipalities from redlining maps that were not made as part of HOLC’s City Survey Program. These places were typically smaller in size, falling below the population threshold of 40,000 that HOLC used to determine which cities they would survey. As these maps were not made as part of HOLC’s City Survey Program, the vast majority use different categories and colors than those used by HOLC.The Residential Security Map created by the Home Owner's Loan Corporation for Decatur, IL.A new version of Mapping InequalityThe University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab began the Mapping Inequality project in 2016. Using scanned images of HOLC City Survey maps, a team of students and scholars georeferenced the images and digitally traced their color-coded residential areas, creating a spatial dataset that has since been used in numerous studies and research projects. Over the course of the project, more cities and their maps were added, including redlining maps of smaller cities that were not a part of HOLC’s City Survey. Non-residential areas shown on the maps, such as industrial and commercial areas, were also traced and added to the spatial database. The spatial dataset has grown, and now contains 10,000 polygons that were created from maps of 328 cities in 43 states.Previous versions of this feature layer, which are missing cities and non-residential areas, are available here and here.Images of the redlining maps maps, and their derived data, as well as more in-depth reading on the history are available on the the Mapping Inequality website. The site also includes a searchable archive of the detailed area descriptions that accompanied redlining maps. These texts provide important nuance in the grades and are invaluable for laying bare the racist, nativist, and often anti-semitic prejudices underlying real estate practice and federal housing policy during the Great Depression.What's in this feature layerEach feature in this dataset is a polygon that represents an area that was drawn on a 1930s redlining map. They include the following fields:area_id (integer) is a unique identifier for each area.city (string) is the name of the city, town, county, etc.state (string) is the 2-letter U.S. Postal Service abbreviation for the state.city_survey (boolean, true=1, false=0) denotes whether the map was created as part of the HOLC City Survey Program or not.category (string) is the assigned category from a redlining map. On standard HOLC City Survey Program maps, the category values are “Best”, “Still Desirable”, “Declining”, or “Hazardous.”grade (string) is the letter grade used to grade the area. For non-residential areas and most cities that were not part of the City Survey, the value is null.label (string) is the label from a redlining map. For most HOLC City Survey Program maps, this value is a letter and number, which often corresponds to an area description viewable on the Mapping Inequality website. commercial (boolean, true=1, false=0) denotes whether or not an area is labeled explicitly as commercial or inferred to be commercial from a redlining map.industrial (boolean, true=1, false=0) denotes whether or not an area is labeled explicitly as industrial, or inferred to be industrial.residential (boolean, true=1, false=0) denotes whether or not an area is labeled explicitly as residential or inferred to be residential.fill (string) is a hexadecimal color code for symbology. The value is typically an approximation of the color shown on a redlining map. You can use this attribute field as a feature symbology in ArcGIS Pro.This spatial dataset is available in geojson and geopackage format on the Mapping Inequality downloads page. Images of the scanned redlining maps, including in spatially referenced geotiff format are also available. UpdatesMarch 1st, 2024Fixed category errors on areas in Hudson County, NJAdded missing areas to Mt. Morris, MI (inset of Flint MI)

Redlining Los Angeles, Tile 2. From Richmond DSL

Home ownership persists as the primary way that families build wealth. Housing researchers and advocates often discuss the racial home ownership gap, particularly for Black and Hispanic households (Urban Institute, Pew Hispanic Center). Historical policies such as redlining, steering, and municipal underbounding have effects that stay with us today.This map shows the overall home ownership rate and the home ownership rate by race/ethnicity of householder in a chart in the pop-up. Map is multi-scale showing data for state, county, and tract.This map uses these hosted feature layers containing the most recent American Community Survey data. These layers are part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas, and are updated every year when the American Community Survey releases new estimates, so values in the map always reflect the newest data available.

This Dashboard presents results from Hoffman et al. (2020) which showed that formerly "redlined" neighborhoods are predominantly warmer today than their non-redlined neighbors in 94% of the cities studied. This relationship is accompanied by a similar, although opposite, trend in tree canopy, whereby redlined neighborhoods have systematically less tree canopy today - and more impervious, hard surfaces - than their non-redlined neighbors. Finally, we have included estimates of the neighborhood demographics - indicated by its % non-white population and median house value - to show that, as many studies have shown previously, that these formerly redlined areas remain relatively lower-resourced and primarily communities of color, underscoring the need to address climate change equitably in these cities which were redlined in the 1930s and 1940s.The web map for this Dashboard can be accessed here.

In the 1930's and 1940's during the New Deal the Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) a government agency, recruited mortgage lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers in nearly 250 cities to create maps that color-coded credit worthiness and risk on neighborhood and metropolitan levels. These maps and their accompanying documentation helped set the rules for nearly a half century of real estate practice. They have also served as critical evidence in countless urban studies in the fields of history, sociology, economics, and law.

Vectorized red-lining map from: "Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America" Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., accessed July 13, 2021, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining "Shared via CC-BY-NC-SAMore information about specific zones and their demographic and housing characteristics can be found at: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=13/41.673/-86.266&city=south-bend-in