#  GIS Day Talk - The Role of Race in Private and Public Redlining in the 1930s 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 19, 2025** 

 04:00PM - 05:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **1730 Cambridge St. Cambridge, MA. CGIS South Building, Room S020**  



 

 



 

John R. Logan, Brown University  
Rachel McKane, Brandeis University  
H. Jacob Carlson, Kean University

The U.S. Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) redlined maps in the late 1930s are notoriously linked with racism. We are using newly developed historical GIS maps of census data in 1930 and 1940 to examine how neighborhood ratings were made in practice, and this presentation will describe how that mapping was accomplished. Some initial analyses have suggested that while race is a significant factor, its importance is greatly outweighed by market-based criteria such as neighborhood social class and share of homeowners. Our current analyses, still underway, extend the study from 23 to 45 cities. A key innovation is that we are also measuring the availability of home mortgages from the private sector before HOLC ratings were completed. This allows us to compare the racial component of HOLC's risk ratings to the possibly discriminatory behavior of the private market before the redlining maps were prepared.

To view all of the Harvard GIS Day festivities and register for the event, please visit our [GIS Day 2025 ](https://gis.harvard.edu/gis-day-harvard)site.



 

 



 

 

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