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Land use and socioeconomic time-series reveal legacy of redlining on present-day gentrification within a growing United States city.

Metadata Updated: February 22, 2025

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps illustrated patterns of segregation in United States cites in the 1930s. As the causes and drivers of demographic and land use segregation vary over years, these maps provide an important spatial lens in determining how patterns of segregation spatially and temporally developed during the course of the past century. Using a high-resolution land-use time series (1937-2018) of Denver Colorado USA, in conjunction with 80 years of U.S. Census data, we found divergent land-use and demographics patterns across HOLC categories were both pre-existent to the establishment of HOLC mapping, and continued to develop over time. Over this period, areas deemed “declining” or “hazardous” had more diverse land use compared “desirable” areas. “Desirable” areas were dominated by one land-use type (single-family residential), while single-family residential diminished in prominence in the “declining/hazardous” areas. This divergence became more established decades after HOLC mapping, with impact to racial metrics and low-income households. We found changes in these demographic patterns also occurred between 2000 and 2019, highlighting how processes like gentrification can develop from both rapid demographic and land-use changes. This study demonstrates how the legacy of urban segregation develops over decades and can simultaneously persist in some neighborhoods while providing openings for fast-paced gentrification in others.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date February 22, 2025
Metadata Updated Date February 22, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date February 22, 2025
Metadata Updated Date February 22, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/2efb6e2d17c4e8bd273d99ac4db1c74e
Identifier USGS:6712935ed34eb6a152fc6d2a
Data Last Modified 20250121
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 8f8148d7-dd27-47d5-9129-0de717f446cf
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -105.064578,39.653209,-104.875498,39.791203
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 37795c8f5107002c6fa951500e6c55ec8c2457887d03d3c65f841871f7934ed3
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -105.064578, 39.653209, -105.064578, 39.791203, -104.875498, 39.791203, -104.875498, 39.653209, -105.064578, 39.653209}

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