First, we used Carto to create a digital map of the formerly redlined areas of LA County. This data is from the University of Richmond’s project “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.”
Then, using 5-year data from the 2013-2017 American Community Survey, we created the following map of median house value for each census tract in Los Angeles County. Darker colors represent higher median values.
There appears to be some similarities between the two maps. To explore this, we used the “intersect and aggregate” analysis on Carto to map the current median housing values onto the neighborhoods shown in the redlining map. This is shown in the following map..
As we see on this map, neighborhoods in former “D” grade areas have lower median house values, on average, than do other areas. This suggests that while official redlining has been outlawed, its effects persist today. The old, largely racist HOLC maps have left their spatial mark on the city.