By James McCurdy
America’s newest federal holiday, Juneteenth, celebrates the end of chattel slavery in the United States and, more broadly, the vital contributions of Black Americans to our nation since its founding. It is a day of joyful recognition—yet Juneteenth also offers a necessary opportunity for America to reckon with the persistent stain of racial injustice that continues to harm communities of color and hamper our nation’s development 150 years after abolition.
Institutionalized racism has continued to blight American life despite suppressed steps towards a democracy representative of our founding creeds. One of the most salient examples of lingering iniquities between white and non-white Americans is the entrenched segregation in America’s housing landscape and the concentration of communities of color in areas hostile to their health and well-being. These same segregated areas are among the most susceptible to the accelerating negative effects of climate change, further compounding the toll levied on the most vulnerable.
Tragically, this iniquity is the result of a deliberate plan formed at the highest levels of our government. A discriminatory government-insured mortgage program instituted in the wake of the Great Depression, known familiarly as “Redlining,” graded neighborhoods in over two-hundred cities based on supposed loan-worthiness. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporations Act (HOLC), a New Deal program that aimed to stabilize the mortgage lending system, drew up “Residential Security” maps based on the perceived security of government loans.
Neighborhoods were graded on a four-level risk-scale ranging from “Best” (marked in green), “Still Desirable” (marked in blue), “Definitely Declining” (marked in yellow), and “Hazardous” (marked in red). Not accidentally, neighborhoods labeled “Hazardous,” and to a lesser extent “Definitely Declining,” had the highest Black and immigrant populations. This meant residents in redlined areas were effectively denied federally-backed mortgages and people of color and immigrants were blocked from higher-rated neighborhoods through restrictive covenants.
Economic devastation in these communities was the predictable result of the systematic denial of opportunities to build generational wealth. Over 28 years, between 1934 and 1962, the federal government issued 120 billion dollars in home loans, 98% of which went to whites. In the past 40 years, homeowners in redlined districts averaged 52% less personal wealth generated by homeownership compared to those in neighborhoods outlined in green and blue.
Beyond the economic damage, redlining had profound negative effects on public health in affected communities. Redlined maps determined the placement of roads, freeways, power plants, ports, and other industrial facilities. The bureaucratically disempowered spaces created by racist practices had little say over their neighborhoods, and the consistent flood of industry to the redlined districts hindered access to shaded green space, reasonable temperatures, and clean air.
The harm is clear and obvious today as areas deemed “hazardous” nearly 100 years ago continue to experience hotter temperatures, an increased risk of flooding, and higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to unsafe air quality.
Heat is the deadliest weather phenomenon in the United States, accounting for around 12,000 deaths a year. On average, historically redlined districts experience temperatures five degrees higher than non-redlined districts, with some disparities reaching as much as 20 degrees. The reasons for this are numerous—less green space, more heat-multiplying concrete, a higher concentration of warehouses, public housing, and busy roads—but the conclusion is always the same: historically redlined neighborhoods are hotter than their higher-rated counterparts, and if current climate models continue to be accurate, only getting hotter. Green space—found far more consistently in neighborhoods marked “Best”—cools down streets by several degrees, filters air pollution, cuts down the cost of electric bills, and curbs the risk of heat-related deaths.
Likewise, discrimination permeates even the air residents of these communities breathe. 1930’s HOLC officials, in addition to labeling neighborhoods “Hazardous” based on the presence of “inharmonious” racial groups, also considered “the presence of smoke, odors, and fog,” in conjunction with other environmental factors. The HOLC’s forms use words like “industry,” “traffic,” “oil,” and “factory” to characterize redlined neighborhoods, while neighborhoods deemed safe for investment were described with words like “parks,” “trees,” and “recreation.”
A study from the University of California, Berkeley, examining over 200 cities found that residents of historically redlined neighborhoods breathe 56% more nitrogen dioxide, a freeway toxin, than people who reside in better-graded areas. Additionally, those in historically underserved neighborhoods are subject to higher levels of PM 2.5 a pollutant that, because of its size, can reach into the depths of the lungs to cause cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses. Both particles have been linked to higher levels of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and Covid-19. A 2019 study of eight California cities found that residents in redlined neighborhoods were twice as likely to visit the emergency room for asthma. Two years later a CalEPA report, “Pollution and Prejudice” found, “the top 10% of least polluted [California] neighborhoods were 72% white while the top 10% of the most polluted neighborhoods were 89% people of color.”
In addition, the very foundations of these neighborhoods were often undermined. The “Description of the Terrain” for a redlined neighborhood adjoining the Sacramento River reads, “Subject to hydrostatic pressure due to high water in river would flood deep basements.” In this respect, the HOLC’s predictions turned out to be a bitter understatement. In a 2021 study encompassing 38 major U.S. cities, researchers found that 8.4% of homes in redlined districts are in zones classified as high flood risk, compared to 6.9% in better-graded neighborhoods. In our state’s capital however, 21.6% of homes in historically redlined areas face high flood risk, while only 11.8% of neighborhoods classified as desirable do the same. That divergence of 9.8% accounts for the collectively appraised sum of $1,883,200,000.
Today, the logic and residue of redlining persist through environmental degradation in historically maligned districts, systemic disinvestment in Black and brown neighborhoods, and the purposeful denial of opportunities to build generational wealth. The lineage of injustice that created redlining, and the lineage of injustice created by redlining is at once too complex and too intersectional to describe simply through the lens of the climate catastrophe. Yet the predominant impact of climate change in historically redlined neighborhoods is a useful lens to examine the present, imminent, and future inequality that has its roots in history.
The overlap between redlined maps of 80 years past and areas preponderantly affected by climate change today is uncanny. The grim reality of environmental racism in today’s America can be expected to profoundly worsen in the future as the same communities disproportionately harmed in the past find themselves on the front lines of the spiraling climate crisis. Recent reports from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office predict an increase in flooding, unbearably hot temperatures, wildfires, and prolonged droughts—existential climate conditions that will disproportionately fall on marginalized populations unless drastic preventative action is taken.
Faced with this data, current climate conditions, and reliable forecasts, it’s imperative to understand and reckon with the pervasive reality of climate racism in the past, present and future. Within our cities and towns, communities only a few miles apart experience the climate catastrophe on acutely different levels. As a climate-conscious community, it’s up to us to explain climate change in persuasive and informed terms, force legislatures to act on incontrovertible climate evidence, and recognize the effects of climate change as a link in the historical chain of injustice that must be broken.