Innovation Session:
People Come and Go, but Places Don’t: The Mechanism behind the Long-Term Effect of Redlining on Built Environment
Friday, November 9, 2018: 9:30 AM-10:15 AM
Atrium - Exhibit Level (Marriott Wardman Park)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Participants: Brian Y. An, University of Southern California, Anthony W. Orlando, Cal Poly Pomona and Seva Rodnyansky, University of California, Berkeley
Description of Research: Understanding the effects of unjust prior policies will help avoid the same policy mistakes in the future. Prior research on redlining suffers from external validity concerns: long-term consequences of redlining are identified, but mechanisms are not explored. This makes it difficult for contemporary policymakers to directly apply lessons to new place-based initiatives, and new policies may again be unwittingly unjust. In other words, the extent to which these research lessons could apply to current or future policies is not clear unless we reproduce, for example, another “redlining” in the 21st century. This innovation session will examine broader takeaways from this field on current policy implications for practice. We argue that the short-run (dis)incentives that placed-based policies such as redlining offers for developers and investors may contribute to the segregation of housing stock, which then solidify inequality in the built environment in the long-term. Our research therefore directly speaks to policy making process that those who design policy should consider broader consequences it will bear on the built environment in the future, not only the immediate impacts foreseeable on investment of community stakeholders. We anticipate our research to stimulate discussion among the policy audience who are interested in making our places more inclusive, equitable, and mixed-use communities.
