Neighborhoods Matter

by Karyn Feiden

Climate change distributes its harms unevenly. “The impact is not borne equally across society,” warns Leah Schinasi, PhD, assistant professor in the department of Environmental & Occupational Health at the Dornsife School of Public Health (DSPH). “In particular, we see that marginalized community members are more likely to experience hot temperatures and the health harms associated with them.”

Philadelphia, one of the most segregated cities in the country, faced triple-digit heat as recently as last summer, with the harshest consequences reserved for impoverished racial groups and the elderly population. Understanding the characteristics of the built environment that drive risk, and the legacy that has contributed to it, can inform policy changes aimed at remediation. A commitment to environmental justice was the inspiration for work recently published in the Journal of Urban Health by Schinasi, the lead author, coauthors Sharrelle Barber, ScD, MPH, Loni Philip Tabb, PhD, and Irene Headen, PhD, MS, all faculty members affiliated with Dornsife’s Ubuntu Center on Racism, Global Movements & Population Health Equity, and Chahita Kanungo, a recent MPH graduate. (A sixth coauthor, Zachary Christman, PhD, holds a faculty position at Rowan University.)

The research team used a historical lens to trace the disparities that contribute to heat-related illnesses and excess mortality. Their touchstone was the racist practice of redlining. In the throes of the Depression in the early 1930s, the federal government issued loans designed to prevent foreclosure and keep people in their homes. To assess risk, the federally sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) graded neighborhoods based on their “desirability” (A, B, C, or D). The lowest grades were invariably assigned to communities with a high proportion of low-income immigrant and Black residents, cutting them off from financing and spawning a spiral of decay.

Today, HOLC’s stark maps have been digitized, providing a game-changing body of data that has allowed scholars and advocates to probe the enduring damage inflicted by redlining. Schinasi and her colleagues randomly selected 100 residential properties in Philadelphia from each of the four grades (400 total) and identified a set of property characteristics that may contribute to particularly dangerous heat exposures. Using the aerial and panoramic photographs available on Google, the researchers inventoried each property to determine roof color, roof shape, presence of mature tree canopy, and presence of recently planted, immature street trees.

By measuring the association between historic redlining and contemporary indicators of heat vulnerability, the researchers sought “to connect structures and systems of marginalization to present-day outcomes,” says Schinasi. Among other analyses designed to provide a more granular understanding, they adjusted for the racial and socioeconomic composition of the neighborhoods at the time the HOLC grades were assigned, drawing on data from the 1940 Census. “We were asking, ‘was it the underlying composition of the neighborhood that created vulnerability even before the redlining maps were created or was it the disinvestment in urban neighborhoods that happened after the creation of the maps?’ ”

Ultimately, the answer proved to be both. The core finding from the published study: Compared to properties in grade A neighborhoods (those deemed most desirable), more B, C, and D neighborhoods exhibited characteristics that left residents vulnerable to heat. The most substantial association between HOLC grades and heat vulnerability was the presence of mature tree canopy. Because mature trees take years to grow, the authors suggest this may be a more stable measure than housing characteristics, which can change as neighborhoods evolve.

“The biggest takeaway is that neighborhoods matter,” says Tabb, associate professor of biostatistics. “Policies have been implemented in the past that change neighborhood characteristics—how they are designed, who lives there, who owns the properties.”

This research—with its unique use of mapping services to create community portraits and findings that show how past policies undermine environmental justice—adds to a growing body of literature on the persistent consequences of disinvestment. As spatial representations of inequity, redlining maps remind us that “we can’t just document what a neighborhood looks like today,” says Tabb. “We need to understand the historical perspective as well.”

The immediate value of the data is to underscore the urgency of targeting heat adaptation resources and broader community-building investments where they are most needed. More broadly, the findings speak to the value of assembling a fuller picture of HOLC’s impact. “The implications of HOLC don’t stop at heat vulnerability, they expand to a lot of other health and social outcomes,” says Tabb, singling out elevated cardiovascular disease as a particular concern.

As the crisis of climate change becomes increasingly visible, more research can also inform strategies for redress there. The Journal of Urban Health paper calls for analyzing patterns of urban redevelopment, reinvestment, and neighborhood change over time to tease out the complex interrelationships among residential segregation, racism, and heat vulnerability. To further knowledge about inequity, more also needs to be known about patterns of disinvestment and their relationship with indoor temperature, including who has access to cooling devices, proper ventilation, and windows that can be opened safely.

Meanwhile, we cannot ignore the ways in which structural and systemic inequities haunt us to this day. “The past is never dead,” wrote William Faulkner. “It’s not even past.” The enduring impact of urban disinvestment is testimonial to this truth.