This would suggest that more higher-credit minorities would get dragged down by their neighbors than would white homeowners with equal credit scores. But an individual’s intelligence is not dependent on the intelligence of his neighbor, at least not at remotely the strength of causation that his property value is related to the property value of his neighbor.
So instead of evidence that the bankers should have redlined members of certain groups, this then would be evidence that they should have redlined certain neighborhoods.
Which of these questions do you think would have served the banks better:
A)Will this applicant remain financially solvent if the average home in their neighborhood drops in value by 30%?
B)Will this applicant remain financially solvent if the average home owned by a black family drops in value by 30%?
I do not think it correct to term it redlining unless the answer is actually going to be “no” for any individual in a given neighborhood regardless of their financial position.
A person in a white neighborhood was substantially less likely to experience a thirty percent drop in value. (Compare East Palo Alto with Palo Alto west of the freeway.)
Homes in areas with large numbers of Hispanics and/or blacks, primarily those with large numbers of Hispanics had the largest proportion of foreclosures, and such neighborhoods had the most severe drops in price, for example Gilroy in California, so discriminating by neighborhood or race or both, regardless of the individual merits of the applicant, would have served the banks better than a race blind or neighborhood blind policy
So instead of evidence that the bankers should have redlined members of certain groups, this then would be evidence that they should have redlined certain neighborhoods.
Which of these questions do you think would have served the banks better:
A)Will this applicant remain financially solvent if the average home in their neighborhood drops in value by 30%?
B)Will this applicant remain financially solvent if the average home owned by a black family drops in value by 30%?
I do not think it correct to term it redlining unless the answer is actually going to be “no” for any individual in a given neighborhood regardless of their financial position.
A person in a white neighborhood was substantially less likely to experience a thirty percent drop in value. (Compare East Palo Alto with Palo Alto west of the freeway.)
Homes in areas with large numbers of Hispanics and/or blacks, primarily those with large numbers of Hispanics had the largest proportion of foreclosures, and such neighborhoods had the most severe drops in price, for example Gilroy in California, so discriminating by neighborhood or race or both, regardless of the individual merits of the applicant, would have served the banks better than a race blind or neighborhood blind policy