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Mapping Inequalities

October 17, 2019 | LaDale Winling

Selection of a HOLC redlining map on the south side of Chicago around the University of Chicago.
Selection of a HOLC redlining map on the south side of Chicago around the University of Chicago.

In the 1930s, the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation conducted a risk assessment of neighborhoods in more than 200 cities across the country. This assessment and mapping project was the origin of the term "redlining," helped restructure the residential real estate finance sector, and fundamentally reshaped the American urban landscape. This talk introduces Mapping Inequality, a big data project that opens up the HOLC archive, discusses the origins of the HOLC city survey, and findings on the consequences for the metropolitan built environment."

LaDale Winling is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech with specialties in urban and digital history. His research and teaching explore urban and political history in the United States, especially how space, architecture, and geography shape politics, economic life, and daily experience. His book, Building the Ivory Tower, examined the role of American universities as real estate developers in the twentieth century.