HOLC “Residential Security” map of Atlanta

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a government agency created as part of the New Deal under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of this agency was to refinance mortgages to reduce national foreclosure.

A major part of the operation of the HOLC was the creation of the infamous City Survey project and the included “redlining maps”. The surveys these maps were based on include overtly classist and racist language such as the following excerpt from the Atlanta survey. “Although this area is considered a good negro rental area from an investment standpoint, it also contains one of the city's worst slum areas.”

The HOLC Residential Security maps are an important example of design as a tool capable of perpetuating and furthering the class divide. A 2018 NCRC study estimates that 74% of neighborhoods the HOLC graded as high-risk or “Hazardous” eight decades ago are low-to-moderate income today. Additionally, most of the HOLC-graded “Hazardous” areas (nearly 64%) are minority neighborhoods now. While these long-lasting effects may not be the intended effect of the designers of artifacts like this map, they should be a careful consideration of designers today.

A collection of HOLC redlining maps is included in the University of Richmond, Mapping Inequality Project.