The federal government’s responsibility to resolve the environmental injustice of redlining

As the nation celebrated its independence, many Americans grapple with how this nation can right the injustices of its past. To address this concern, we need to understand the root. Some communities are passing programs that assist people of color to enable home ownership. Home equity has always provided a financial safety net for homeowners — especially, in times of need — but many people of color lack this safety net. To remedy this issue, the federal government must address economic systems that have promoted environmental disadvantages.

Recent reports from Harvard University and the National Association of Realtors emphasize that, while this housing crisis remains a nationwide challenge, it is most damaging for communities of color. The cause is not the COVID-19 pandemic, but decades of discrimination and redlining.

In January 2021, the Biden administration issued two executive orders (EOs) that address environmental injustice in the United States: EO 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, and EO 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines environmental justice as, “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.” EO 13985 directs federal agencies toward “advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.”

Principally, leaders must consider financial practices that have institutionalized environmental injustice. Such systemic bias appears clearly in records of the federally backed Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), which provided refinancing for residential mortgages during the Great Depression. To inform its lending practices, HOLC produced color-coded maps that graded community creditworthiness; ultimately, these “residential security” maps included more than 200 cities. HOLC shaded certain areas in red to indicate “hazardous” credit risk levels and a consequent lack of merit for mortgage loans.

By design, many “redlined” areas were home to African American and other minority communities. The use of HOLC’s redlining maps in both the public and private sectors after the Great Depression impeded access to mortgages, insurance products, other forms of credit, and broader financial services for communities of color. HOLC’s redlining transformed a neutral financial program into federally sanctioned capital restriction and segregation for communities of color.

In addition to illustrating financial discrimination, HOLC’s surviving redlining maps indicate obvious environmental biases. In residential security maps across the country, redlined areas intersect industrial and commercial zoning consistently. For example, a 1938 residential security map of Philadelphia shows extensive redlining near areas that were then zoned for industrial and commercial use and which still contain some of the city’s heaviest industry. These maps illustrate that relationships between residence, race, and industrial hazards became institutionalized by design in the United States.

In 2020, suspecting that these environmental injustices persist broadly today, we decided to overlay redlining maps from the 1930s and 1940s with current maps of environmental and public health stressors, such as maps of facilities that treat, store, and dispose of hazardous waste. The analysis compared redlining maps with maps from EPA’s EJSCREEN tool.

EJSCREEN is a publicly accessible online mapping system that combines environmental data and demographic records to enable analyses of populations who may face adverse environmental impacts. By overlaying redlining maps with EJSCREEN maps, we found a 90 percent or higher rate of intersection between communities of color, current industrial hazards, and historical redlining in dozens of communities in the Mid-Atlantic Region alone. This alignment shows a century-long connection between residence, race, and industrial stressors in many locations — and emphasizes the urgency to resolve old environmental injuries while preventing new ones.

Environmental racism did not begin in the 1930s with redlining, nor did it end during that period. Nonetheless, past redlining maps provide a nationwide record of environmental injuries that communities of color have faced due to discriminatory finance. To ameliorate these injuries, we will need to design a system that ensures safer housing and equitable credit access. We will also need to ensure a process that advances protections for affected communities to prevent and mitigate further injuries.

The legacy of redlining represents extraordinary environmental injustices of the past and underscores an opportunity for our government to serve the public far better in the present and future.

Samantha Phillips Beers is an environmental attorney with more than 30 years within the federal government. Angus Welch is a physical scientist with the federal government. The views expressed are the authors own.