Redlining has become the default explanation for persistent inequality in American cities: in the 1930s, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation color-coded neighborhoods by perceived investment risk, and mortgage lenders used those maps for decades afterward to restrict lending in the areas marked as risky, entrenching poverty and segregation across generations. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led by Jola Ajibade of Emory University and Kevan B. Moffett of Washington State University Vancouver, argues that this familiar story no longer captures the full picture of who has it good and who doesn’t in American cities today.

Using Portland, Oregon as a case study, the researchers layered public socioeconomic data and more than 100 environmental and health indicators onto a modern city map, then compared the result against the historical HOLC boundaries. The comparison, they say, could be repeated for other U.S. cities, and it surfaces patterns that redlining maps alone can’t explain.

Affluent, mostly white neighborhoods — whether they were redlined decades ago or not — still enjoy cleaner environments, more tree cover, better healthcare access, and lower disaster risk, while the city core continues to carry heavy air pollution regardless of its historical rating. Poorer neighborhoods, which today are often located outside the old HOLC zones entirely, show the worst conditions on the researchers’ indicators: limited access to green space, aging infrastructure, more pollution and disaster exposure, and higher rates of diabetes, obesity, and disability. Formerly redlined neighborhoods that have since gentrified present a mixed picture of their own — better transit and more community resources, but hotter streets, less tree cover, and more pollution, a tradeoff that newer, often wealthier residents can offset more easily than longtime ones. Areas absorbing families displaced by that gentrification tend to be greener and less polluted, but lack the healthcare, strong schools, and transit access that would make those environmental advantages add up to real long-term well-being.

Ajibade argued that simply mapping redlined neighborhoods no longer captures the complex, evolving picture of urban inequality, and that policymakers and planners need a wider lens than redlining alone if they want to build healthier, more equitable cities. The study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Article Title: Today’s urban inequality goes far beyond legacy of ‘redlining,’ study shows
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.242276012
Publication Date: September 14, 2026

Source: EurekAlert