How Redlining’s Racist Effects Lasted for Decades<br />As recently as 2010, they find, differences in the level of racial segregation, homeownership rates, home values<br />and credit scores were still apparent where these boundaries were drawn.<br />Lines like these, drawn in cities across the country to separate “hazardous”<br />and “declining” from “desirable” and “best,” codified patterns of racial segregation and disparities in access to credit.<br />“We now have evidence that is very systematic and nationwide<br />that has detailed that these borders did matter,” said Leah Boustan, an economic historian at Princeton familiar with the research, which she called “pathbreaking.”<br />Historians have long pointed to the significance of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps.
