Scorched by history: Discriminatory past shapes heat waves in minority and low-income neighborhoods

NEW YORK — Ruben Berrios knows the scorching truth: When it comes to extreme heat, where you live can be a matter of life and death. “Only a quarter of New York City’s population is African American, but half of the deaths from heat are African Americans,” said Bill Ulfelder, executive director of the Nature Conservancy in New York. Comparing 1930s redlining maps with recent heat vulnerability maps by New York City’s health department reveals stunning correlations between how areas were categorized and where residents are most likely to die from heat. In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corp. assigned Mott Haven a “D” grade, the lowest possible, for “hazardous.” For the adjacent neighborhood of Morrisania, the agency listed “Negro and Puerto Rican infiltration” and “obsolete homes” as “detrimental influences.” Today, the South Bronx has some of the city’s lowest per-capita green space and is crisscrossed by power plants, waste stations and highways that cause severe noise and air pollution. In a bid to combat climbing temperatures, New York City Mayor Eric Adams activated the city’s heat emergency plan on June 18 for a week, designating hundreds of locations as air-conditioned facilities where residents can cool off during the day.