Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
July 2005
Abstract
At the request of the Home Loan Bank Board, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created color-coded maps for cities across the country between 1935 and 1940 that indicated risk levels for long-term real estate investment. Involvement in this City Survey Program marked a departure from the original mission of HOLC to provide new mortgages on an emergency basis to homeowners at risk of losing their homes during the Depression. This article considers why HOLC made these maps, how HOLC created them, and what the basis was for the grades on the maps. Geographic information systems and spatial regression models are used to show that racial composition was a significant predictor of map grades, controlling for housing characteristics.
Date Posted: 04 October 2006
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Copyright Duke University Press. Postprint version. Published in Social Science History, Volume 29, Issue 2, 2005, pages 207-233.
Publisher URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_science_history/toc/ssh29.2.html