1935

Federal policy formalizes boundaries

Less than a decade later, in 1935, the federal government launched a New Deal program that would reinforce segregationist boundaries in Austin and throughout the country. The program was designed to restore household wealth during the Great Depression, but it excluded most minority communities through redlining — the practice of denying or charging more for goods and services in certain neighborhoods, usually determined by race.

Government-backed mortgages wouldn’t be offered in redlined districts, and virtually all the minority neighborhoods were redlined. In Austin, the largest redlined section encompassed Koch and Fowler’s “negro district.”

Because the Home Owners Loan Corporation would not provide mortgages in those districts, most of the nation's African-American residents could not access one of the most significant efforts to buld household wealth in U.S. history.

Use the slider to see how the HOLC-designated “hazardous” areas — in which no federally backed mortgages were offered — compared with Austin’s black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Map of Austin, July 1934

█ Concentrations of blacks, Hispanics in 1934

HOLC-designated areas in 1935

█ "Hazardous" areas

█ "Best" or "Desirable" areas

█ "Definitely declining" areas