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Old Posted Feb 14, 2022, 1:49 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Click the link to see the historical redlining maps and current demographic segregation of a few cities.
I've come to believe that the whole discussion regarding redlining is confusing correlation with causation TBH.

I mean, my own adopted city of Pittsburgh is the first one featured here. They show the areas which were redlined. This includes my old neighborhood of Lawrenceville, which never experienced appreciable white flight, remaining a working-class white neighborhood until it gentrified around 10-15 years ago. Houses now go for ten times what they sold for in the 1990s.

It's not the only example either. Lots of portions of the city which are now desirable, including South Side Flats and much of the lower North Side were redlined. Nearly everything residential that had rowhouses was redlined during that period.

You can see this on the redlining maps elsewhere as well. Although other things played a role, in every city, basically all of the inner-ring residential neighborhoods closest to downtown were redlined. This likely in part reflects the reality of the time period - downtowns were dirty places, and living nearby was not desirable. But it also in part probably reflects the mid 20th century ideal that the inner urban neighborhoods should be cleared of residents to make way for non-residential uses.

Certainly, there was a racial dimension to redlining as well, with areas redlined in part because of historic or rising black populations. But practically speaking there's little difference locally between the black areas which were redlined and those in the next two tiers - other than white flight starting a bit later. Not so much in Pittsburgh, but on the maps of Philly and Detroit there are some blighted neighborhoods within the "desirable" rating.
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