How and Why Does Redlining Matter for Present-Day Health? Critical Perspectives on Causality, Cartography, and Capitalism.

Abstract

Recent years have seen an explosion of public health research on associations between historical redlining maps created by a US government agency, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), and present-day outcomes. Yet precisely how and why HOLC's surveys help us understand the underpinnings of present-day racial inequities remains unclear. We apply an interdisciplinary perspective to assess the contributions and limitations of this literature, particularly with regard to causal mechanisms and theoretical explanations. While research often frames HOLC redlining as a measure of structural racism that directly shapes present-day outcomes, we look instead to racial capitalism to understand how and why racialized housing policies are implemented. We argue that the HOLC maps represent symptoms, not causes, of systematic disinvestment in Black communities, that redlining was not produced by the federal government in isolation but was shaped by public‒private collaboration and infused with capitalist logics, and that redlining interacted with many other forms of racialized housing dispossession to shape present-day riskscapes. We conclude by offering conceptual and methodological recommendations for public health researchers, including suggestions for data sources other than HOLC maps. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print March 13, 2025:e1-e11. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.308000).