White families could more easily get loans and federal assistance to buy homes, building wealth to pass on to their children. But the redlining maps, economists have found, deepened patterns of racial inequality in cities nationwide in ways that reverberated for decades. Richmond, like many cities, was already segregated before the 1930s by racial zoning laws and restrictive covenants that barred Black families from moving into white neighborhoods. Now, as global warming brings ever more intense heat waves, cities like Richmond are drawing up plans to adapt - and confronting a historical legacy that has left communities of color far more vulnerable to heat.īy contrast, white neighborhoods, described as containing “respectable people,” were often outlined in blue and green and were subsequently favored for investment. Heat is the nation’s deadliest weather disaster, killing as many as 12,000 people a year. “It tells us we really need to better understand what was going on in the past to create these land-use patterns.” “It’s uncanny how often we see this pattern,” said Vivek Shandas, a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University and a co-author of the study. They also have more paved surfaces, such as asphalt lots or nearby highways, that absorb and radiate heat. Redlined neighborhoods, which remain lower-income and more likely to have Black or Hispanic residents, consistently have far fewer trees and parks that help cool the air. In the 20th century, local and federal officials, usually white, enacted policies that reinforced racial segregation in cities and diverted investment away from minority neighborhoods in ways that created large disparities in the urban heat environment.Īcross more than 100 cities, a recent study found, formerly redlined neighborhoods are today 5 degrees hotter in summer, on average, than areas once favored for housing loans, with some cities seeing differences as large as 12 degrees. In cities like Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Portland and New York, neighborhoods that are poorer and have more residents of color can be 5 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit hotter in summer than wealthier, whiter parts of the same city.Īnd there’s growing evidence that this is no coincidence. There are places like Gilpin all across the United States. The ZIP code has among the highest rates of heat-related ambulance calls in the city.
Many front yards are paved with concrete, which absorbs and traps heat. More than 2,000 residents, mostly Black, live in low-income public housing that lacks central air conditioning. There are few trees along the sidewalks to shield people from the sun’s relentless glare. On a hot summer’s day, the neighborhood of Gilpin quickly becomes one of the most sweltering parts of Richmond.
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