Groundbreaking research on the intersection of climate change and segregation reveals how racist banking practices banned by Congress 52 years ago continue to shape how black and lower-income Americans experience the effects of global warming.
Among other things, researchers found that historical “redlining” of minority neighborhoods in more than 100 American cities has placed a heavier burden on residents from extreme heat than other communities, according to the findings published in the journal Climate.
Redlining, the mid-20th-century practice by banks and insurers to concentrate black and other minority homeowners within certain neighborhoods, was banned under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But its legacy has persisted through entrenched segregation; economic inequality; lack of public services to redlined communities; and air quality deterioration from urban highways, industrial plants and landfills.
