Racialized Hazardous Space: A Critical Race Urban-Environmental Sociology of Residential Security in the Depression Era

Abstract

This article advances a novel “critical race urban-environmental sociology” (CRUES) approach that synthesizes Marxist and critical race theory to focus on the “production of racialized hazardous space” and “residential security” during the Great Depression in the U.S. It applies the CRUES lens to the work of Frederick M. Babcock, the economist who disseminated authoritative and racially discriminatory statements on residential security and neighborhood appraisals before and during his tenure at the Federal Housing Administration. The article shows how Babcock paralleled and intersected with strands of classic urban ecology to conflate racially segregated and environmentally hazardous neighborhoods and naturalize their devalued status. Using the CRUES lens, the article also frames the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) worst neighborhood rating in its 1930s Residential Security Surveys as racialized hazardous space, and advances a conceptual model for future research on how environmental hazards, racialized social “threats,” and other sociospatial factors conditioned HOLC hazardous grade assignments.