According to new analysis from Zillow, Denver's neighborhoods which were "redlined" by lenders decades ago now have median home values surpassing the city's average.
“I’m seeing very affluent people come either back into the city from the suburbs or from places from across the country,” community activist Tony Pigford tells The Denver Post. “And when you bring race into the issues, and the wealth gap is firmly drawn along racial lines, in my neighborhood, it means I am losing the vibrancy that comes with a multicultural and economically diverse community.” Zillow's chief economist Svenja Gudell explains, “Often, I think it can be attributed to gentrification. Denver has really had a problem with pricing people out of downtown areas and has gotten more expensive and that shows up in that data."
Redlining was widespread in Denver. A 1938 Home Owners’ Loan Corp. map of the city shows that wide swaths of northern and western Denver, including Five Points, Globeville, Highland and Barnum, were deemed high lending risks. Redlining was outlawed in 1968, and while economic investment was not quick to come to those Denver neighborhoods, home largely to Latino and African-American people, it certainly has come in the past decade as Denver has experienced a population and development boom.
