Redlining Never Ended, It Just Changed Its Shape
by Rachel Ryan, Enlight Media
When people talk about the “American Dream,” homeownership can take a central role. Owning a home builds wealth, provides stability, and creates options for the next generation. But for decades, entire communities were cut off from that dream through a practice known as redlining, and its legacy is still with us.
What Redlining Was
In the 1930s, federal agencies and private banks worked together to grade neighborhoods on their “desirability” for investment. Areas where Black and immigrant families lived were often marked in red and deemed too risky for mortgage loans. This effectively shut residents out of homeownership, one of the primary drivers of generational wealth. White families in “greenlined” neighborhoods were given access to federally backed loans that built the foundation of the modern middle class.
Those decisions still cast a long shadow. In 2023, only 44% of Black Americans own homes compared to 73% of White Americans. 1 And even when Black families do buy homes, they’re often worth less: homes in majority-Black cities like Atlanta, Washington D.C., and New Orleans are undervalued by an average of $50,000 compared to similar homes in majority-White cities. 2
How Redlining Lives On
Red lines may no longer appear on government maps, but their effects continue to shape neighborhoods and workplaces today.
While redlining was outlawed in 1968, its effects persist in ways that are harder to see but just as real:
School Funding: Because public school funding is tied to property taxes, neighborhoods with lower home values have fewer resources for education, perpetuating cycles of inequity.
Wealth Gaps: Less generational wealth means fewer savings to weather crises, start businesses, or fund higher education.
Algorithmic Redlining: Modern credit and rental algorithms can unintentionally replicate bias, reinforcing the same exclusions that once came from paper maps.
These systemic barriers add up, shaping everything from health outcomes to career opportunities.
Why It Matters for Workplaces
Candidates from historically redlined communities may have had fewer educational resources, limited access to internships, or less financial stability to take unpaid opportunities.
Leaders who understand these structural barriers can design better policies, from equitable hiring practices to relocation stipends, that create real access rather than perpetuating existing gaps.
Connecting the Dots with Patterns in American Racism
Our Patterns in American Racism collection explores how policies like redlining shaped today’s disparities. In the Housing Discrimination module, viewers see how federal maps and bank policies created wealth gaps that still show up in homeownership rates and education funding today and how these patterns can be disrupted through intentional action.
This context helps organizations tackle the root causes of inequity in their systems and structures.
Explore Patterns in American Racism at InContextNow.com to learn more about how these systems were built and how your organization can be part of dismantling them.
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1 Cozzi, Lauren. “More Americans Own Their Homes, But Black-White Homeownership Rate Gap Is Biggest in a Decade, NAR Report Finds.” National Association of Realtors.
March 2, 2023. https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/more-americans-own-their-homes-but-black-white-homeownership-rate-gap-is-biggest-in-a-decade-nar#:~:text=While%20the%20U.S.%20homeownership%20rate,rate%20gap%20in%20a%20decade.
2 Perry, Andre M., Jonathan Rothwell, and David Harshbarger. “The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.” Brookings Institution. November 27, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/devaluation-of-assets-in-black-neighborhoods/.