Look at a modern American city’s map of wealth, race, and pollution, and you’re still seeing the shadows of bureaucrats’ colored pencils from the 1930s.

A closer look

Look at a modern American city’s map of wealth, race, and pollution, and you’re still seeing the shadows of bureaucrats’ colored pencils from the 1930s. Federal housing agencies once drew red lines around neighborhoods considered “too risky” for loans — usually Black, immigrant, or low‑income areas. Banks followed those maps, starving redlined zones of mortgages and investment for decades. Homes crumbled, businesses struggled, highways were routed straight through them. Meanwhile, “greenlined” suburbs accumulated generational wealth through rising property values. Even though formal redlining is illegal now, its geography survives: the same areas often have fewer trees, worse air, higher heat, and lower life expectancy. History isn’t just in books; it’s baked into where bus routes and grocery stores ended up.