I did the data analysis and maps for today’s @virginianpilot articles, by @JournoMurph and @saragregory, on racial #segregation in #Norfolk. Here’s a thread to answer some of the questions, doubts, and misconceptions that have arisen about the maps. https://bit.ly/39WKSxv  1/

Norfolk is more segregated now than 100 years ago. Most American cities are. That’s been extensively studied and documented in large body of peer reviewed research (e.g. John Logan’s outstanding work with the Urban Transition Historical GIS Project: https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/UTP2/index.htm). 2/

The fact that Norfolk is more segregated today than 100 years ago DOES NOT mean everything was great vis-à-vis race was great 100 years ago. I don’t make that claim, the Pilot articles don’t make that claim, and that’s not what data or maps show. 3/

What it does show is that segregation wasn’t always this way and isn’t “natural”. It was made and it is maintained. Mostly through racist housing policies, but also racist banks, racist realtors, overt racial violence, and more. This is well documented and studied. 4/

Nearly 250 cities were redlined in the late 1930s. Not all redlined neighborhoods were majority Black, but just about all majority Black neighborhood were redlined. Check out this map of every redlined neighborhood in the country: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-94.58. 5/

Here’s what Norfolk’s redlining map looks like overlaid on 1950 census data by race. Across Hampton Roads, 30 neighborhoods were redlined. Half were entirely Black. Less than 1/3 were majority white. No Black neighborhood escaped being redlined. 6/

And here is one of the data sheets that was used in making the 1940 map. Race is all over it, from the quantification of race to the overtly racist description of the area. All these data sheets are available on the map embedded in the story: https://bit.ly/39WKSxv  7/

Racial segregation today is not about choice. And it’s not just economic segregation. Racist housing policies in the past subsidized the creation of white wealth while preventing the creation of black wealth (if not outrightly destroying it). 8/

That wealth has grown cumulatively across generations. Today, according to the Federal Reserve, median black family wealth is only 10% white median family wealth. THAT is the economic legacy of racial segregation. There is no other explanation for this racial wealth gap. 9/

To say that segregation today is about personal choice, or economics disconnected from racist housing policies, is ahistorical. Segregationist housing policies CREATED the racial wealth gap that we see today manifested in racially AND economically segregated neighborhoods. 10/

Segregated neighborhood beget segregated schools. Since property taxes fund schools in most places, there is also a massive racial funding gap in public schools across the US ( https://wapo.st/2Y7lWOj ). 11/

Racial segregated has profound environmental justice implications. In Norfolk, redlined neighborhoods are about 5.5°F hotter on summer days than neighborhoods that weren’t redlined ( https://bit.ly/3sRGF6F ). (Imagery courtesy of @jer_science). 12/

That's because redlined neighborhoods have more impervious surfaces and fewer trees. They're also more likely to be food deserts, to be overexposed to EPA toxic release sites, to have interstate highways cut through them, and to have lower air quality. 13/

That’s all for now. Happy to answer questions/engage in substantive conversations. 14/