Talk:Redlining

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[edit] Sources

This page has little to no sources for reference. In fact, I have been unable to verify the Federal Housing Authority's influence in Redlining.

I have added one source for that. More to come futurebird 21:48, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is the info about the bank in the right place?

There is a lot of information here about one bank. They did do a great job of fighting redlining, but is this article the right place for that? futurebird

[edit] Add reasons for redlining

I think there should be a section that attempts to explain what is sometimes mistakenly called redlining. For example, why would banks reject loans if there is profit to be made? This is an important question to ask in determining whether something is actually redlining. Often times banks rejected loans to black families/neighborhoods for good reasons - low income, poor credit, threat of race riots, worsening neighborhood condition. I just think we should include a section on this so that when someone does some research on redlining, they aren't too quick to call everything redlining. It's good to know the limits and restraints of this argument.128.175.81.47 (talk) 18:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. People who are higher risk or have less collateral have to pay more for loans because they are higher risk, which is another way of saying "on the average, they cost more to loan money to." Complaints of redlining seem to come frequently from people who don't understand that most banks are pursuing their rational self interest and not about to pass up potential profit. Of course, does anyone know whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might have created some form of moral hazzard in this regard, when they were created or privatized? ----Ryan Wise (talk) 05:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)76.175.199.3 (talk) 05:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that redlining wasn't done for racist purposes but was just businesses trying to make sound decisions. All money is green and money lenders of all people know this. I'm skeptical that the banks would've cared what color skin the individual was as long as the money was paid back. With that, the banks knew the areas that were least likely to pay back their loans and as such, were too risky of an investment for them. This isn't a matter of who's being allowed to date someone's daughter, but rather what kind of return investment the banks were going to have. How about we clean the racist overtones of this article shall we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chairmanriot (talk • contribs) 16:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

To Chairmanriot: But redlining is a racial issue. Removing the "racist overtones of this article" would be ignoring the reality of the subject. Redlining is another form of racial profiling. Just because you can come up with a non-racist argument for why it makes sense to redline (the same arguments the violating businesses use) doesn't mean that racism is not a reality. I am very glad that you've not had to experience racism in your life. I hope we get to a world where no one ever experiences it. Unfortunately, it's still a major blight on our society, and to claim that redlining does not have racial motivations is to do an injustice to history. I believe the proper term is "whitewashing" (and for good reason). Agatehawk (talk) 18:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There's another angle to redlining. In the pizza delivery industry, "redlining" is the practice of marking certain parts of the delivery area as no-delivery zones either after dusk or all the time. A few years ago this drew cries of racism. In a few cities, most notably San Francisco, laws were passed mandating that if delivery was offered, then delivery must be offered to the whole city. This caused many mom-and-pop shops to discontinue delivery because they could only reasonably deliver a few blocks away from their shops. I've spent more time than I care to admit delivering pizza and can attest that such accusations of racism are nothing but garbage. We called it "redlining" because the bad parts of town were outlined on the map with a red felt-tip pen. Frotz (talk) 21:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah a comment for Agatehawk, I think that Chairmanriot did an excellent job of explaining why redlining can occur without any sort of racism involved. You simply spewed out a paragraph saying "It is racism" then you move onto an ad hominem fling about how Chairmanriot has just never experienced racism in his/her own life. You haven't explained whatsoever about how this is racist, and until we find some solid sources that point to racism, I don't even believe race should be discussed in this article. -Brad Kgj08 (talk) 13:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)