From Redlining to Reinvestment: Community Responses to Urban Reinvestment.

• Author: McDougle, Alan

Have you ever wondered, "Why in every metropolitan area are there areas that need major investment?" And, "How did such deterioration occur?" Answers to these and other disturbing questions about the landscape of urban America are found in From Redlining to Reinvestment, which addresses the social and economic effects of redlining in our urban communities. This book provides an insight on the reasons for disinvestment in parts of our cities, the effects of which have direct monetary impact on the entire community.

The practice of redlining is as common to American culture as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. Author/editor Gregory Squires describes redlining as "a process by which goods or services are made unavailable or are available only on less-than-favorable terms to people because of where they live...." The book begins with a brief forward that includes a historical synopsis of events leading to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1976 and the Financial Institution Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989.

The author exposes the redlining phenomenon using original essays from well-known community activists. Case studies on several metropolitan areas throughout the country describe the extent and effects of redlining in those cities and how the communities dealt with redlining practices. An underlying theme is that resistance to community reinvestment channels through all levels of the public and private sector.

A thoughtful reader learns from this book that reinvesting in urban communities depends on having a community organization that thoroughly understands the extent of the problem. This can be accomplished through the use of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data to analyze lending patterns. More importantly, a community-based effort must be assembled to challenge the illegal act of redlining, always keeping in mind that the desired end result is to provide for resources that place greater priority on capital investment than on direct government support for subsistence maintenance. An example would be the "token" use of dollars to supplant current homeowners and community improvement with a federally...