Segregated Pasts, Fragmented Presents: Redlining and Contemporary Prosociality

Sara Peters, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Victor T. Chen, Virginia Commonwealth University
Myeong Lee, George Mason University
Giemyung Lee, George Mason University

This paper examines whether historical redlining moderates the contemporary relationship between ethnoracial diversity and social connectedness. Scholars debate whether increasing diversity strengthens or weakens community ties and sentiment, with findings varying based on how both diversity and social connection are measured. In this literature, little attention has been given to how historical racial exclusion shapes these relationships. Redlining is a well understood practice of historical social and economic exclusion which has had long-range impacts through segregation on contemporary racial inequalities. A growing body of research links past exclusionary institutions to present-day inequalities, including the effects of slavery on Black-white poverty disparities, lynching on contemporary racial violence, and redlining on housing and health outcomes. Building on these bodies of work, we investigate whether historical redlining continues to shape social cohesion by integrating geocoded redlining data with multiple measures of contemporary social connection and prosocial behavior drawn from Social Capital Atlas (Chetty et al. 2022) and Meetup.com data at the ZIP code level in U.S. metropolitan areas. We first outline a framework of prosociality, which encompasses social networks, social capital, and prosocial behavior, to examine how exclusionary housing practices may have constrained long-term community-building. Using spatial analysis, we test whether redlined communities, places historically denied access to resources and integration, exhibit variation in the associations between diversity and social connectedness today. By situating historical exclusion within debates on diversity and social cohesion, this study extends prior work that has primarily focused on history’s impact on economic and health disparities. We anticipate that redlining has left a lasting imprint on local social infrastructure, moderating the association between ethnoracial diversity and prosociality in urban U.S. communities.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 128. Spatializing Race