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Historic Redlining Scores for 2010 and 2020 US Census Tracts

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Helen C.S. Meier, University of Michigan. Institute for Social Research. Survey Research Center; Bruce C. Mitchell, National Community Reinvestment Coalition

Version:  View help for Version V2

Name File Type Size Last Modified
HRS2010B.cpg text/plain 5 bytes 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.dbf application/x-dbf 5.9 MB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.prj text/plain 167 bytes 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.sbn application/x-shapefile 118.2 KB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.sbx application/x-shapefile 2.1 KB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.shp application/x-shapefile 21 MB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.shp.xml application/xml 8.4 KB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM
HRS2010B.shx application/x-shapefile 100.8 KB 10/15/2021 08:55:AM

Citation: 

Meier, Helen C.S., and Mitchell, Bruce C. . Historic Redlining Scores for 2010 and 2020 US Census Tracts: HRS2010 Shapefiles. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-10-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/E141121V2-125400

To view the citation for the overall project, see http://doi.org/10.3886/E141121V2.

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a U.S. federal agency that graded mortgage investment risk of neighborhoods across the U.S. between 1935 and 1940. HOLC residential security maps standardized neighborhood risk appraisal methods that included race and ethnicity, pioneering the institutional logic of residential “redlining.” The Mapping Inequality Project digitized the HOLC mortgage security risk maps from the 1930s. We overlaid the HOLC maps with 2010 and 2020 census tracts for 142 cities across the U.S. using ArcGIS and determined the proportion of HOLC residential security grades contained within the boundaries. We assigned a numerical value to each HOLC risk category as follows: 1 for “A” grade, 2 for “B” grade, 3 for “C” grade, and 4 for “D” grade. We calculated a historic redlining score from the summed proportion of HOLC residential security grades multiplied by a weighting factor based on area within each census tract. A higher score means greater redlining of the census tract. Continuous historic redlining score, assessing the degree of “redlining,” as well as 4 equal interval divisions of redlining, can be linked to existing data sources by census tract identifier allowing for one form of structural racism in the housing market to be assessed with a variety of outcomes. The 2010 files are set to census 2010 tract boundaries. The 2020 files use the new census 2020 tract boundaries, reflecting the increase in the number of tracts from 12,888 in 2010, to 13,488 in 2020. Use the 2010 HRS with decennial census 2010 or ACS 2010-2019 data. As of publication (10/15/2020) decennial census 2020 data for the P1 (population) and H1 (housing) files are available from census. 

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Structural racism; redlining
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States Metro Areas

Methodology

Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit census tract

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V3 [2023-09-25]

V2 [2021-10-15]

V1 [2021-05-26]

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