Earlier I shared a ‘redlining’ map of Baltimore from 1935 that showed the neighborhood boundaries of racially-based housing discrimination. Policies drawn using maps like that one restricted the ability of African Americans to purchase homes outside of densely populated high-crime areas such as those marked on the map in red and yellow.
This evening, wildguess and I collaborated to make a new map, combining data of incidents of riot activity in the city with the historic map of redlined Baltimore. The image you see now is stark. Despite the white flight and gentrification of the intervening decades, there is a startling similarity between the pattern of violence today and the contours of the segregated districts of the old map.
Please, look carefully. I want to illustrate—literally!—the links between institutionalized discrimination and the events of the last few days. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Color coded pins:
Red—Looting
Yellow—Fire
Green—Alarm
Gray—Police units requested
Riot activity data source
