Unearthing the hidden lines

A look at how historical redlining shaped Pittsburgh's Modern day landscape.

FHA and HOLC

Following the great depression and related home foreclosures, the federal government developed new agencies to allow access to affordable home mortgages, including:

Federal Housing Administration (FHA):

Underwrote mortgage risk to increase banks’ comfort with mortgage lending (Swope, 2022).

Homeowners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC):

Offered refinancing assistance to struggling homeowners, purchasing their mortgages and reissuing reduced mortgages with longer repayment timelines (Swope, 2022).

Redlining

FHA and HOLC directed neighborhood appraisals to determine investment risk

This took into account the residents’ race, contributing to segregation, disinvestment, and racial inequities in opportunities for homeownership and wealth accumulation (Swope, 2022).

Would rank neighborhoods “A” (best) to “D” (Hazardous). The ranking of hazardous and credit-unworthy is associated with the color red, which is why it is referred to as redlining (Swope, 2022).

Historical Redlining in Pittsburgh: 1940 HOLC grading

Mapping Inequality. (Date Accessed: 10/15/2023). University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab.  https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/40.425/-80.045&mapview=graded&city=pittsburgh-pa 

HOLC appraisers surveying Pittsburg in 1937 saw a divided city, racially segregated housing market restricted communities of color, buttressed by zoning laws, to some of the densest parts of the city (Rutan & Glass, 2018). 

In the Mid-1930s, 70 percent of the African American population lived in one of three neighborhoods: The Hill District, East Liberty, or Homewood (Rutan & Glass, 2018).

Map of HOLC Census grades based on Pittsburgh Demographics:

Side by Side Comparison

Redlined Areas (1940) vs Current Population Distribution

Full image of Population distribution in Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh Race and Ethnicity Census (2021)

Though Pittsburgh is considered diverse, its population still remains segregated.

African Americans are still currently situated in and around the neighborhoods mentioned earlier.

Neighborhoods still densely populated by African Americans

The Hill District

  • Collection of neighborhoods located northeast of downtown Pittsburgh. 
  • One of the city’s first black districts
  • A historical hub of Black Art and culture 
  • Lost to urban renewal in the 1950s.

East Liberty

  • Was successful regional business district until 1958. 
  • Declined in the 1960s due to urban renewal program designed to remake east liberty so that it could compete with the new suburban markets and shopping malls. 

Homewood

  • Was a thriving, diverse working-class community. 1950 census declared around 22% of population was African American.
  •  In the 1950s the city of Pittsburgh cleared the lower hill district to make way for the civic arena. This displaced thousands of African American families, many of whom moved to Homewood. 
  •  They were mainly low-income families 
  •  The large influx accelerated the flight of White American families to suburban communities.
  •  By 1960, the census stated 66% of Homewood population was African American 

Uneven economic power was dictated partially by race and ethnicity and shaped neighborhood stability, social standing, and the ability of property owners to maintain their properties (Rutan & Glass, 2018) 

Health Impacts

Fossil Fuel Power Plant Locations: 

Findings in Cushing study suggest racism in the residential housing market has had an enduring impact on the subsequent siting of fossil fuel power plants and distribution of present-day air pollutant emissions (Cushing et al., 2023). 

Asthma 

  • In Schuyler’s study it was reveal that historical practices of HOLC also contributed to long-term environmental and asthma related inequities in Black Adults. 
  • The sampling over Alleghany County neighboring populations show the emissions of carbon monoxide, filterable particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds increased across HOLC grades, with grade D neighborhoods seeing the highest levels. 
  • The worst asthma related outcomes, including uncontrolled and/or severe asthma, and evidence for delivery of suboptimal asthma care occurred among registry participants from grade D neighborhoods (Schuyler & Wenzel, 2022).

Closing points:

  • Historical HOLC maps and contemporary demographic maps reflect social divisions: segregation, disparities in housing conditions, and gaps in wealth of the city.
  •  Despite the city’s current talk of renewal, Pittsburgh is still constructed around a geography very similar to its past. 
  • Poor and black residents are still situated in areas that suffered from divestment.
  •  Whereas the affluent class and homeowners live in areas supported by historic advantage 
  •  Red lining associated with an increased risk of a fossil fuel plant being sited upwind and within a 5 km range and a higher present-day emissions burden 

THE END

Resources and citations: 

 Best, R. & Mejia. (2022). The Lasting legacy of Redlining. FivethirtyEight.  https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redlining/#explore-top 

 

Best Neighborhood. (Date accessed: 10/15/2023). Race, Diversity, and Ethnicity in Pittsburgh, PA.  https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-pittsburgh-pa/ 

 

 

HelpInitiative. (Date accessed: 10/15/2023). About Homewood.  https://helppgh.org/help-communities/about-homewood/ 

 

Mapping Inequality. (Date Accessed: 10/15/2023). University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab.  https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/39.977/-75.232&mapview=graded&city=philadelphia-pa 

 

Rutan, D. Q. & Glass, M. R. (2018). The Lingering Effects of Neighborhood Appraisal: Evaluating Redlining’s Legacy in Pittsburgh. The Professional Geographer, 70(3), 339-349. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2017.1371610 

 

Rutan. (Date accessed: 10/15/2023). The Legacies of Redlining in Pittsburgh. SUDS.  https://suds-cmu.org/2017/02/21/the-legacies-of-redlining-in-pittsburgh/ 

 

Schuyler, A. J. & Wenzel, S. E. (2022). Historical redlining Impacts Contemporary Environmental and Asthma-related Outcomes in Black Adults. American Journal of respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 206(7).

 

Swope, C. B., Hernández, D., & Cushing, L. J. (2022). The Relationship of Historical redlining with Present-Day Neighborhood Environmental and Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review and Conceptual Model. Journal of Urban Health, 99, 959-983. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-022-00665-z  

 

 

Mapping Inequality. (Date Accessed: 10/15/2023). University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab.  https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/40.425/-80.045&mapview=graded&city=pittsburgh-pa 

Full image of Population distribution in Pittsburgh, PA

Neighborhoods still densely populated by African Americans