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Glite Dictionary
⛔ A strict limit 🚫 To deny housing 🏎️ To over-rev 📝 To mark changes
to redline

to redline

1 9.6
Refuse to lend or sell housing in certain neighborhoods because of race
  • verb
  • /ˈrɛdˌlaɪn/
  • Offensive
translation icon : practicar redlining
  • Local depositors living in a redlined area find that their savings, instead of being converted to mortgage and home improvement loans for local use, are directed to other, less risky areas, usually new suburban developments.
  • redline a neighborhood

Examples

  • First, the decision to redline is based on a subjective assessment of the likely effects of the race or ethnicity of potential buyers, the age of the housing stock, and the potential for financial loss in a given community.

    Academic text (1997)

  • To real estate agents and mortgage lenders, the "redlined" area was a clear signal that this was no place for upstanding citizens to purchase a home or get an easy loan.

    Blog text (15)

  • The second is that tax-exempt and mortgage markets would clear, but farmers, students, and small businesses would be "redlined," meaning that credit would not be available, even at very high interest rates.

    Academic text (2016)

  • "You've been redlined.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Mortgage aid redlined neighborhoods with any racial integration, ensuring white people couldn't get mortgages if they wanted to live near blacks.

    Blog text (33)

  • And because the immediate result of the decision to redline is the withdrawal of monies required to maintain that community's health, disinvestment ensures that decline will, in fact, occur.

    Academic text (1997)

  • And for decades, one of the formulas banks plugged into their system to figure out risk was race—entire neighborhoods were redlined because they were black neighborhoods.

    Blog text (13)

  • (One of the early impetuses for greenfield suburbanization was that it was the easiest way to ensure that neighborhoods would be white-only, preventing them from being redlined).

    Blog text (33)

  • Housing authorities have been known to redline specific neighborhoods, excluding residents based on their race.

  • Many communities continue to face discrimination as banks choose to redline areas with high minority populations.

Antonyms

equal opportunity
25 3.1

The idea that everyone should have the same chance for jobs, school, or promotion whatever their background

How Discriminatory

to redline
  • Offensive
1 9.6
to discriminate
  • Offensive
120 4.9
to avoid
∞ 1.0
to refuse
716 1.7
to serve
∞ 1.8

Surface Forms

redline infinitive
redlined past
redlined past participle
redlining present participle
redlines third person singular

Morphology

redline = red + line (semi-transparent) = red + line

Formed from 'red' + 'line' (literally drawing a red line), but the specific sociohistorical practice of denying housing is a specialized, culturally specific meaning that learners cannot reliably infer.

Etymology

Redline comes from the practice of banks drawing a red line on maps around neighborhoods where they would 'not give loans'. So to redline someone came to mean refusing to sell or rent housing to people in those areas.