Digital Legacies of Redlining in NYC
Redlining is a discriminatory practice that puts services (financial and otherwise) out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity. It can be seen in the systematic denial of mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial services based on location rather than on an individual’s qualifications. Notably, the policy of redlining is felt the most by residents of minority neighborhoods.
The Divide and Impact of Covid
The effect of NYC's digital divide was visible at a large extent especially during the Lockdowns and work and study from home models. The covid 19 pandemic has exposed how digital divide truly affects populations especially the marginalized minority populations. Internet services and infrastructure form important factors that assess the quality of life. Redlining has affected this access just like banking and insurance systems.
The disparities
An important thing to remember for us was that, While access to broadband is often divided upon socio-economic lines, the truth is that no neighborhood is immune from poor internet. Though not significantly, The north to south and east to west were affected by poor broadband
Research Question
With some basic sense of the possible connection between redlining and internet access and usage, our Research Statement was How has Redlining influenced Internet access in NYC?
Data Sets
With some basic sense of the possible connection between redlining and internet access and usage, our Research Statement was How has Redlining influenced Internet access in NYC?
We realized that as a city asset, internet, Wi-Fi hotspots and NYC links play an important role in people’s daily lives
Patterns
We directly compared the broadband adoption in NYC in 2020 with the redlining map. It turns out the digital divide in NYC is following the redlining patterns until now, especially the home broadband, which is heavily relied on the infrastructure around and city location.
