A new study has found that the neighborhoods that were redlined by federal officials in the 1930s had higher levels of harmful air pollution eight decades later.
In the wake of the Great Depression, when the federal government graded neighborhoods in hundreds of cities for real estate investment, Black and immigrant areas were typically outlined in red on maps to indicate risky places to lend. Discrimination in housing was banned in 1968. The redlining map shows practices that persist nearly a century later.
Historically redlined neighborhoods are more likely to have high populations of Black, Latino and Asian residents than areas that were favorably assessed at the time.
California's East Bay is an example.
The neighborhood grade was in the 1930s.
The non-white population was 2010's percent non-white population.
The neighborhood grade was in the 1930s.
The non-white population was 2010's percent non-white population.
The neighborhood grade was in the 1930s.
The non-white population was 2010's percent non-white population.
The neighborhood grade was in the 1930s.
The non-white population was 2010's percent non-white population.
The neighborhood grade was in the 1930s.
The non-white population was 2010's percent non-white population.
The neighborhoods within Berkeley and Oakland that were redlined sit on lower-lying land, closer to industry and in the path of major highways. According to a new pollution study, people in those areas experience levels of nitrogen dioxide that are twice as high as in the areas that the federal government designated as best for investment in the 1930s.
Margaret Gordon has lived in West Oakland for decades. There are many children who suffer from asthma. Development projects that make the air worse have been a problem for residents.
Ms. Gordon, co-director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, said those people don't have the voting capacity or the money to fight this.
Haley M. Lane said she was surprised to find that the differences in air pollution exposure between redlined and better-rated districts were larger than the differences between people of color and white Americans.
Ms. Lane is a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
The patterns of all kinds have been found by researchers since the redlining maps were uploaded.
In the summer, historically redlined neighborhoods are 5 degrees hotter than other areas due to less green space and more paved surfaces. The study found that residents of redlined neighborhoods were twice as likely to go to the emergency room for asthma.
The study looked at neighborhoods in 202 cities and their exposure to two pollutants that are harmful to human health: nitrogen dioxide, a gas associated with vehicle exhaust, industrial facilities and other sources. The study was funded by the EPA.
The assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, who worked on the study, assumed that the differences between neighborhoods would be more pronounced in the South. He and his colleagues found that the patterns across the country were the same.
The history of racist planning is ingrained in American cities of any stripe.
Each neighborhood was given a letter grade by the government in the 1930s. The study found that the neighborhoods that were the least desirable decades later were more exposed to dirty air and more residents lived near industrial pollution sources.
In part, this is because some areas were already polluted in the 1930s. The lack of investment in these neighborhoods made them attractive for new projects that needed cheap land.
The study only looks at demographic and pollution information from 2010 Information from the 2020 census was still being collected when the researchers started their analysis. They used 2015 pollution data to find consistent trends.
Air pollution in the United States has decreased since 2010, but research shows that racial and income differences in exposure have not gone away.
Rachel Morello-Frosch, an environmental health scientist at Berkeley who contributed to the study, said that gentrification and other factors have changed the racial makeup of some cities.
The neighborhoods in the redlining maps only include a portion of the population that has grown since the 1930s. Exposure to air pollution in those cities is often not hard to spot.
The government relations and community outreach director at Air Alliance Houston said concrete plants are often built in the city's minority neighborhoods because developers think people there are less likely to object.
Some residents are deterred from participating in public hearings because of language barriers. State authorities have begun publishing more information in Spanish and Vietnamese.
Ms. Gutierrez lives on the East Side of Houston, which is heavily Hispanic, so she goes across town to take her children to the park when she wants to.
It doesn't smell right when you want to have a picnic or be outside on a beautiful day, she said.
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