Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate

Title

Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate

Description

This is an impeccably researched history of redlining in Louisville, KY with maps. The About section contains the narrative history with quotes from books. The richly detailed sections of web-based maps that one can zoom in or out and manipulate in different ways to learn about include:

1. Timeline of Events Related to City Planning, Redlining, and Segregation in Louisville, KY
2. Your Neighborhoods
3. Compare Segregation
4. Compare Income
5.  Compare Poverty
6. Compare Race
7. Compare Vacant Properties
8. Compare Property Values
9. Compare Home Ownership
10. Compare Mortgage Lending
11. Compare Development Trends
12. Compare Zoning

Excerpt:
About this Project

While attending the University of Louisville as a graduate student in urban planning in 2010, I began researching the history of city planning in Louisville, KY as it related to race, class, and segregation.

J. Blaine Hudson, longtime Louisville intellectual, activist, founder of the Saturday Academy, and Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville took notice of the research in January of 2011 and invited me to present at the Saturday Academy.

Dr. Hudson’s encouragement was affirming and we began a regular communication. We discussed how Louisville’s Residential Security Maps would be a means of linking public policy with private discriminatory lending practices and began searching for the maps. In the summer of 2013, I located these maps for Louisville in the national archives in Washington, DC, nearly six months after Dr. Hudson passed away.  

I decided the best way to visualize the information was through interactive storymaps. My hope is that this information will be used by the community to dismantle discriminatory systems of power, pursue economic and policy reparations through a process of truth and reconciliation, and have a meaningful impact in shaping public policy through equitable reinvestment in “redlined” areas, which are affected to this day.  

Dr. Hudson was very eager to view these maps and I deeply regret that he did not get to participate in the effort that we began in 2011.

This project is dedicated to his memory and his tireless efforts fighting for social and economic justice in our community. 

Special thanks to Tyler Allen for assistance in procuring the maps, Robert K. Nelson of the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab for technical support, Russell Goodwin for research assistance, Jeana Dunlap from Louisville Metro Government for funding support, and Jane Poole of the Louisville Jefferson County Information Consortium (LOJIC) for cartographic support. Very special thanks to my wife, Maggie Poe, for research assistance, encouragement, and support.  

Developed and created by Joshua Poe

Co-Principal Investigator

Root Cause Research Center

https://www.rootcauseresearch.org

502.544.3834

joshuapoe001@gmail.com

 



Subject

Racial Justice

Creator

Joshua Poe

Rights

Developed and created by Joshua Poe

Co-Principal Investigator

Root Cause Research Center

https://www.rootcauseresearch.org

502.544.3834

joshuapoe001@gmail.com

Relation

All of the datasets for this project are available for download at https://data.louisvilleky.gov/dataset/redlining-louisville

Coverage

Louisville, KY

Comments

Collection

Citation

Joshua Poe, “Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate,” Antiracism Digital Library, accessed April 19, 2024, https://sacred.omeka.net/items/show/310.