New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s

Price Fishback, Jonathan Rose, Kenneth A. Snowden and Thomas Storrs

Journal of Urban Economics, 2024, vol. 141, issue C

Abstract: We show that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), from its inception in the 1930s, did not insure mortgages in low income urban neighborhoods where the vast majority of urban Black Americans lived. This pattern emerged before the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) drafted its infamous maps. In contrast, the HOLC itself broadly loaned to core urban neighborhoods and to Black homeowners. We conclude that the mechanisms through which the HOLC's maps could have affected the geographic scope of mortgage lending were likely quite limited. The FHA instead evaluated neighborhoods using block-level information developed in the 1930s and other data, rather than on the basis of the HOLC maps.

Keywords: Redlining; Housing finance history; Home Owners' Loan Corporation; Federal Housing Administration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s (2022)
Working Paper: New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:141:y:2024:i:c:s0094119022000390

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2022.103462

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