geography/maps

Erin Hatton sent in a 1937 redlining map of Philadelphia, so I decided to update our earlier post on segregation and redlining in the city.

—————

One historical cause of residential segregation was redlining. Lenders would color-code different neighborhoods on residential maps; red was generally the color used to designate a neighborhood as “dangerous,” meaning mortgages would not be approved in those areas, since they were considered to be high-risk areas for mortgage defaults. This was generally a blanket rule: people found themselves unable to get mortgages to buy property in redlined areas, regardless of their income or the value of the particular house they wanted to buy. And a high proportion of Black (and sometimes White immigrant) residents generally meant that a neighborhood would be automatically tagged as a high-risk area.

The University of Pennsylvania Redlining in Philadelphia project provides an example of a map created to guide lending in Philadelphia. The map was created in 1934 by J.M. Brewer, who owned a real estate consulting company and later was chief appraiser for Metropolitan Life Insurance.

This legend was adapted from the original for the U. of Pennsylvania website:

The legend looks like the “colored” areas are coded yellow, but it’s actually red on the map. Brewer created another map in 1935 and helped draw the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) map of Philadelphia in 1937.

Erin Hatton sent a link to that 1937 HOLC map, which reflects the governmental institutionalization of racism, marking some groups as inherently undesirable:

If you go to Redlining Philadelphia and click on areas of the map, it links to the survey sheets used to rate each neighborhood. All include a section on detrimental elements and a demographics breakdown, with areas to note the presence of immigrants, African Americans, poor families, and so on, such as this section of a survey sheet for area 22, giving a security grade of D:

African Americans were not the only group targeted by redlining. For instance, the survey sheet for area 5 mentions the “danger of Jewish encroachment”:

Redlining made it difficult for Blacks (and some White ethnics) to buy homes. Racial discrimination meant Blacks often couldn’t buy homes outside Black neighborhoods, but Black neighborhoods were often redlined by lenders, meaning Blacks couldn’t get mortgages to buy houses inside them, either. As a result, African Americans were disproportionately barred from one of the major avenues to acquiring wealth (building equity through home ownership), leading to increasing racial disparities in wealth and home ownership over time.

Also check out our post on segregated Durham.

Trudi Abel, who directs the Digital Durham Project at Duke University, sent in a map she thought we might like to post. Created by the Department of Public works in Durham, NC, in 1937, the map illustrates the legal and taken-for-granted racial segregation of the time. The map indicates which parks and residential areas were for Whites and which for African Americans:

The map:

Obviously you can’t see much, other than a general idea of which parts of town each race lived in. Go to the Digital Durham website and click on the map for a version that lets you zoom in to read all the details.

You might also want to check out our posts on a 1934 redlining map of Philadelphia and 2010 Census data on segregation.

In the 3 1/2 minute video below, CGP Gray explains the nonsense behind the word “continent.”  It’s a cultural construct, with some geological rationale, but not enough to rationalize the seven that we recognize.

Also from CGP Gray: What the Bleep is the United Kingdom?! and The Economics of Royalty.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Dolores R. sent a link to a map created by Derek Watkins to show how the names given to geographic features reflect cultural patterns. Using a database of names officially accepted by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, Watkins mapped generic terms used in the names of streams (excluding “creek” and “river,” which are commonly used throughout the U.S and were plotted in a gray that fades into the background):

The generic terms reflect historical immigration patterns. “Kill” appears in areas of New York originally settled by the Dutch; “cañada,” “arroyo,” and “río” indicate areas of Spanish exploration and settlement in the Southwest; of course, Louisiana and the surrounding area still reflects its French heritage through the term “bayou.”

The map reflects internal migration and cultural diffusion within the U.S., as well. For instance, Watkins suggests that the patch of red in southwest Wisconsin, indicating the use of “branch,” may be due to the lead mining boom in the early 1800s. Lead mining attracted Appalachian miners to the area, and they may have influenced local naming practices, bringing along terms common in Appalachia.

For more on the interconnections between geographic names or terms and larger cultural patterns, Watkins suggests reading Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, by George Stewart (2008). Another excellent source is Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache, by Keith Basso (1996).

The website If It Was My Home (and yes, they know about the grammar error) allows you to get a better grasp on the size of the area affected by the BP oil leak.  They use National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s daily updates on where the oil will reach in the next 24 hours and allow you to use Google Maps to position it anywhere you want. It’s easier for me, at least, to get an idea of the dimensions of the area we’re talking about when I can imagine it on an area I’m familiar with than seeing it on a map of the ocean.

Here’s the oil leak area centered over Las Vegas, where I live:

The darker the shade of gray, the denser the oil. Here is the current NOAA surface oil projection for the next 24 hours; red indicates places oil may hit shores:

Today’s 72-hour projection, which shows the range extending qute a bit to the west, and more affected shoreline:

Thanks to Kate W. for the link!

Related posts: using the oil spill to advertise cheap flights, should we clean up oil-soaked wildlife?, the Gulf oil industry, BP buys Google search terms, BP gives Florida money for advertising tourism, protesting BP, and the power of images of environmental disasters.

The US Census Bureau put together the map below.  It shows what percentage of households in any given county include a married couple.  In the counties colored with the darkest turquoise, between 59.6 and 79.6% of households consist of a married couple.  In the counties colored white, less than 51.6 do.

I think it’s interesting to speculate as to how the reasons why there are more or less married couple households might vary by place. For example, some places may have disproportionate numbers of gay and lesbian residents who cannot, legally, get married. Others may have higher rates of poverty, which has been shown to decrease relationship stability, leading to less marriage and more divorce.  Still others may have normative or religious pressures in favor of marriage (Utah strongly stands out as the most marriage-prone state).  The racial/ethnic make-up of counties may contribute to marriage rates; we know, for instance, that black women marry at a lesser rate than white women for a whole host of reasons.  Racial/ethnic homogeneity may play a factor too, since interracial marriage is still uncommon and asymmetrical when it does occur.  Some counties have more disproportionate ratios of males and females, which may also shape marriage rates. What do you think?  More hypotheses?  Arguments one way or another?

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Missives from Marx sent in a link to this animated time line documenting the diffusion of various political-economic systems (e.g., fascism, democracy, and feudalism) over world history.  It can be read as a story about the triumph of democracy, but it’s also illustrates how political-economic systems are not natural, but invented during particular historical eras, and diffuse or disappear as a consequence of war, geography, and other geopolitical factors.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

You might have noticed that there are poor, rich, and middle class neighborhoods in just about every town.  Sociologists call this residential segregation.  Residential segregation is a problem, in part, because it can create a situation in which some neighborhoods have more social and other services than others.  Sociologists have found, for example, that richer neighborhoods tend to have more grocery stores, better sidewalks, and more fire protection.

So, when Jessica Sherwood, of Sociologists for Women in Society, sent us a map showing the density of playgrounds in New York City, I immediately thought to correlate it with average income.

Playground map (darker pink = more playgrounds):

Map of median household income (yellow = more income, blue = less):

UPDATE:  Awesomely, Reader Mark Root-Wiley overlaid the two maps and sent it along!  Here it is:

It looks to me that playground density is highest in the poorest neighborhoods.  A very unusual finding!

So, what factors do you think might account for the disproportionate number of playgrounds in low income areas?  Speculate away!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.