Analysis on the Persisting Effects of Redlining on Green Infrastructure in Chicago Neighborhoods

Abstract

This report looks at “redlining” maps produced by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to analyze the current green infrastructure levels in various neighborhoods of Chicago. Redlining maps, produced in the first half of the 20th century, essentially graded neighborhoods on their riskiness for mortgage lenders. These maps often followed strict racial lines marking neighborhoods with a majority of black and other minority occupants in red to indicate they were the riskiest, hence the term redlining.¹ Gathering geospatial data from these HOLC maps and overlaying them with maps showcasing green infrastructure indicators provides a visual representation of the relationship between structural disinvestment in neighborhoods and their current green infrastructure levels. Additionally, some neighborhoods break the pattern, showcasing which areas have changed the most with investment, indicating changes that can be associated with things like gentrification. In the end, k-means clustering best showcases the patterns that have emerged when looking at two variables with such a large gap in time between when the data was collected: redlining information from the 1940’s, and green infrastructure indicators from to 2010’s.

This research was taken a step further to begin descriptive analytical assessments of the ways in which redlining information relates to a variety of other datasets on the built environment. In this way, trends were starting to emerge that could suggest redlining as a predictor for other variables, however, the neighborhood scale at which the data was categorized does not produce strong enough indications. Nonetheless, continuing this line of study at a smaller scale, perhaps at the census tract level, could lead to more conclusive findings with a stronger correlation between redlining information and other datasets on the built environment that highlight the need for, and lack thereof, green infrastructure in disenfranchised areas.