Redlining Maps and Terrains of Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Mapping of Racialized Redlining to Present-Day Sustainability Agendas in HCI

We ask how historic redlining, a US government run, racially discriminatory practice of assessing and mapping property values for federally subsidized home loan eligibility in the 1930s, is tied to current issues of sustainability. We frame redlining as a historic data practice, tied to ongoing exposure to environmental harms and difficulty building generational wealth in African American communities in Indianapolis. To address this, we made maps to ground interdisciplinary discourse between the authors: two who research sustainable human computer interaction (SHCI) and one who researches sustainable food systems, including issues of food security. Our maps, which combine historical redlining maps and contemporary sustainability issues facing Indianapolis, helped us explore the ongoing impacts of redlining across our disciplines. We develop the term ‘sustainability’ for HCI across racial, socioeconomic, and environmental tensions and reflect on how SHCI’s emerging posthuman emphasis on human/non-human relations are associated with human/human challenges like redlining.