How US redlining led to an air pollution crisis 100 years later

Study of 200 cities shows dangerous environmental inequality fueled by 20th-century practice dividing cities along racial lines

A new study has found that neighborhoods in which the federal government discouraged investment nearly 100 years ago - via a racist practice known as redlining - face higher levels of air pollution today.

Looking at more than 200 cities across the nation, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that people who live in neighborhoods that were once categorized as hazardous", based on racist factors such as how many Black or foreign-born" people lived there, now breathe 56% more of the freeway pollutant nitrogen dioxide than those in top-rated areas.