The discriminatory housing practice of marking certain neighborhoods as risky for lending is called redlining.
The term became associated with maps and lending policies that treated areas—often including Black neighborhoods—as poor credit risks. Although neighborhood maps were produced by several institutions, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s 1930s maps are especially closely associated with the history of redlining in the United States.
Redlining could restrict access to mortgages, insurance, and investment, reinforcing existing racial and economic segregation. The practice was not simply a neutral assessment of buildings; racial composition and social judgments were often part of the classification.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made housing discrimination illegal in the United States, but researchers continue to find long-term links between historic redlining and present-day differences in wealth, homeownership, health, and environmental conditions.