Abstract
Urban redevelopment in the United States is usually presented as improvement: bringing neighborhoods back to life, creating economic opportunity, and fixing neglected areas. Yet this story doesn't match reality. In the 1930s, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation assigned letter grades to neighborhoods supposedly assessing mortgage lending risk, but these grades functioned as tools of racial policy. In Richmond, Virginia, HOLC appraisers inflated Black population figures to justify predetermined "D" designations with consequences that persist today. Formerly redlined neighborhoods now have higher violence rates, worse housing stability, fewer trees, and summer temperatures 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than non-redlined areas. Both projects ask: How can cities meaningfully address redlining's legacies, both in understanding them and in ensuring that contemporary redevelopment serves communities most harmed by historical disinvestment? This involves two connected challenges. First, a knowledge challenge: how can the long-term consequences of discriminatory planning be made visible and understandable to educators, policymakers, residents, and community organizers? Second, a political and ethical challenge: how have urban renewal projects in formerly redlined Richmond defined "repair," and whose interests are prioritized?
The technical project addresses the knowledge challenge by developing a location-based augmented reality platform that makes visible the connections between historical redlining and contemporary conditions in Richmond. Rather than confining redlining data to static maps, the AR platform allows users to stand in historically redlined neighborhoods and see contextual information appear around them through mobile devices: HOLC grades, environmental data like tree canopy and heat exposure, demographic information, and community stories overlaid on their surroundings. This transforms redlining from an abstract concept into an immersive experience grounded in place. The platform integrates HOLC maps, historical census data, zoning records, and information about green space and development patterns. Success is measured by whether users show greater understanding of structural inequality after using the AR platform compared to traditional maps, and whether it supports the educational and advocacy goals of community partners including the NAACP Virginia State Conference Youth and College Division's Education Committee.
The STS research project addresses the political and ethical challenge by examining how urban renewal and redevelopment projects in formerly redlined Richmond define "repair" and whose interests those definitions serve. Analysis reveals three main ways repair is officially defined, each showing a gap between stated equity commitments and actual outcomes. First, redevelopment is framed as infrastructure and economic reconnection. The Reconnect Jackson Ward project calls the I-95 cap an act of "repair" and "healing," treating physical restoration as the main response to the 7,000 residents displaced in the 1950s. This contrasts with research showing repair must address loss of social networks and institutions. Second, this framing downplays displacement risk. Planning documents acknowledge gentrification will happen but provide no binding protections like community land trusts or rent stabilization. Third, redevelopment investment corresponds to real estate markets rather than historical harm. Neighborhoods with higher Black populations experience reinvestment more slowly, even when other factors would predict upgrading. Together, these mechanisms create an official definition of repair that prioritizes developer interests over community preservation. Planning tools are not neutral but encode the interests of those who designed them. Contemporary redevelopment operates similarly to redlining itself: spatial conditions produced by redlining become the material conditions making neighborhoods eligible for redevelopment under external terms. Race-neutral language converts developer interests into supposedly neutral improvement. Genuine repair would require fundamentally changing who defines repair: replacing aspirational language with mandatory community requirements, shifting financing away from speculative profit, and treating incumbent community rights as non-negotiable.
Together, these projects show that addressing redlining's legacies requires both visibility and structural change. Making consequences visible is necessary but not sufficient. Understanding alone does not guarantee equitable outcomes. The STS research shows that redevelopment systems remain structured to repeat historical patterns unless deliberately changed. As cities nationwide use equity-focused language in redevelopment, the dual challenge becomes urgent: ensuring historical harms are understood fully, and ensuring redevelopment systems are fundamentally transformed to serve communities most harmed rather than repeating marginalization. Richmond's ongoing redevelopment offers a case study in whether community resistance and advocacy can force structural change. The broader significance lies in showing that technological and infrastructural systems are not merely contexts where social conflicts happen, but are themselves active participants in reproducing or challenging inequality.
