- Redlining
- Segregation
- 1938
- City of Atlanta
- General area only
The 1938 HOLC map: Black neighborhoods graded D
The federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation graded 111 Atlanta neighborhoods from A to D for mortgage risk, and every Black neighborhood was graded D.
The record
The HOLC's Residential Security Map ranked neighborhoods by perceived lending risk. Area descriptions weighed residents' race, and Black areas were uniformly placed in the lowest, red-shaded grade (Rhodes). Low grades told lenders to avoid those areas. The same years produced the city's own race maps: a 1934 Real Property Inventory spot map marking 'Negro sections', and City Planning maps of 'Areas occupied chiefly by Negroes'. All of these are georeferenced on GSU's GeoServer.
Today: The graded polygons are shown from Mapping Inequality. GSU's GeoServer also serves the 1938 map (layer sif:1938ga_atlanta_combined).
Where on the map: Citywide; use the Mapping Inequality polygons.