Teen Vogue: What is Redlining

What is Redlining? How Residential Segregation Shaped U.S. Cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many of the flaws within our country, but perhaps one of the most glaring examples is how the virus has disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities. This isn’t a coincidence. It all goes back to one major thing: housing. So, what is redlining? In the 1930s, when our government decided that non-white communities didn’t deserve access to better housing, it established systemic barriers that ended up segregating communities by race. So in 2020, when the global pandemic made its way to the United States, it wasn’t a surprise that the most susceptible communities were those that had long been strategically neglected by our government. Much of our present-day society is related to the laws and agencies that were created generations ago. This includes one of the most structurally defining practices of the last century: redlining.

For the full article in Teen Vogue click here. And for more information on the history and impact of Redlining, check out our recent blog post here.