Table 1.
Geographic, 1940s sociodemographic, and 2010 greenspace data among all HOLC polygons overlapping 1940s U.S. Census tracts in 102 U.S. urban areas by HOLC grade.
| HOLC grade | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | Row count | A | B | C | D |
| Total HOLC polygons [ (row %)] | 4,141 | 439 (10.6) | 1,043 (25.2) | 1,637 (39.5) | 1,022 (24.7) |
| 2020 Level I ecoregion [ (row %)]a | |||||
| Eastern Temperate Forest | 3,013 | 287 (9.5) | 714 (23.7) | 1,229 (40.8) | 783 (26.0) |
| Great Plains | 319 | 42 (13.2) | 72 (22.6) | 103 (32.3) | 102 (32.0) |
| Marine West Coast Forest | 141 | 21 (14.9) | 46 (32.6) | 54 (38.3) | 20 (14.2) |
| Mediterranean California | 633 | 82 (13.0) | 204 (32.2) | 238 (37.6) | 109 (17.2) |
| Northern Forest | 32 | 4 (12.5) | 7 (21.9) | 13 (40.6) | 8 (25.0) |
| 2020 Census region [ (row %)] | |||||
| Midwest | 1,573 | 168 (10.7) | 363 (23.1) | 654 (41.6) | 388 (24.7) |
| Northeast | 1,042 | 85 (8.2) | 244 (23.4) | 440 (42.2) | 273 (26.2) |
| South | 699 | 75 (10.7) | 174 (24.9) | 233 (33.3) | 217 (31.0) |
| West | 827 | 111 (13.4) | 262 (31.7) | 310 (37.5) | 144 (17.4) |
| 1940 U.S. Census characteristics [median (IQR)] | |||||
| Black (%) | 0.6 (1.9) | 0.3 (1.3) | 0.3 (1.9) | 2.1 (15.0) | |
| Completed high school (%) | 37.4 (17.5) | 27.5 (19.1) | 17.7 (15.4) | 10.6 (11.6) | |
| Employed (%) | 40.0 (5.1) | 39.1 (5.1) | 38.0 (6.0) | 35.2 (7.1) | |
| Foreign-born White (%) | 8.6 (8.9) | 10.4 (10.1) | 13.4 (12.0) | 12.6 (16.4) | |
| Major home repairs needed (%) | 2.3 (3.6) | 3.2 (4.9) | 4.6 (6.5) | 8.5 (11.0) | |
| Median home value [$1,000s (1940s US$)] | 6.3 (4.7) | 4.9 (2.9) | 3.8 (2.1) | 2.7 (2.0) | |
| Non-White (%) | 0.9 (2.4) | 0.5 (1.6) | 0.6 (2.3) | 2.7 (15.2) | |
| Population density (thousand persons per HOLC polygon area)b | 4.8 (10.8) | 5.4 (10.3) | 4.4 (9.4) | 4.8 (11.0) | |
| White (%) | 99.1 (2.4) | 99.4 (1.6) | 99.4 (2.3) | 97.3 (15.2) | |
| Without radio (%) | 1.0 (1.2) | 1.4 (1.6) | 2.0 (2.4) | 4.6 (7.0) | |
| 2010 NDVI [mean (SD)]c | |||||
| Annual average | 0.47 (0.09) | 0.43 (0.09) | 0.39 (0.09) | 0.36 (0.10) | |
| Minimum value | 0.20 | 0.16 | 0.11 | 0.13 | |
| Percentile | |||||
| 25th | 0.41 | 0.37 | 0.32 | 0.29 | |
| 50th | 0.46 | 0.42 | 0.38 | 0.36 | |
| 75th | 0.52 | 0.49 | 0.44 | 0.42 | |
| Maximum value | 0.69 | 0.67 | 0.67 | 0.68 | |
| Summer average | 0.57 (0.12) | 0.53 (0.13) | 0.49 (0.13) | 0.46 (0.14) | |
Note: HOLC-Home Owners’ Loan Corporation; IQR, interquartile range; MODIS, MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer; NDVI-normalized difference vegetation index; SD, standard deviation.
Two polygons in cities in the Northwestern Forested Mountains (Spokane, WA) and one polygon in the North American Desert (El Paso, TX) ecoregions, both Grade A, were omitted from this table because no other HOLC polygons from these areas were eligible.
1940 population density was calculated using areal-weighted 1940s population of the HOLC polygon area in kilometers-squared.
NDVI were calculated using images from MODIS satellite imagery across all four seasons in 2010.