In the 1930s, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) graded the mortgage security of urban US neighborhoods. In doing so, the HOLC engaged in the practice, imbued with racism and xenophobia, of "redlining" neighborhoods deemed "hazardous" for lenders. Redlining has caused persistent social, political and economic problems for communities of color. Linkages between redlining and contemporary food access remain unexamined, even though food access is essential to wellbeing. To investigate this, we used a census tract-level measure of low-income and low grocery store food access from the US Department of Agriculture Food Access Research Atlas, redlining data from Mapping Inequality Project, and demographic data from the American Community Survey. We employed generalized estimating equations with robust covariance estimates to analyze data pertaining to 10,459 census tracts in 202 US cities. Tracts that the HOLC graded as "C" ("decline in desirability") and "D" ("hazardous") had reduced contemporary food access compared to those graded "A" ("best"). Increases in contemporary census tract proportions of Black, Hispanic, or other racial/ethnic minority residents, as well as disabled residents, were associated with reduced food access. Increases in contemporary proportions of residents age 75 years and older or those without a car were associated with better food access. Tracts that underwent housing redevelopment since being graded had better food access, while those undergoing gentrification had reduced food access. Results suggest that issues of redlining, housing discrimination, racism, ableism, displacement, and food inaccessibility are deeply intertwined.

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We apply an environmental justice lens to synthesize knowledge of disparities experienced by Hurricane Harvey survivors based on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) across the disaster phases. We focus on the Texas Gulf Coast, which hosts the largest petrochemical industrial complex in the United States and experienced Harvey-induced flooding in 2017, precipitating a naturaltechnological (na-tech) disaster. We review studies that have examined race/ethnicity-and/or SESbased disparities in each of Harvey's phases (i.e., mitigation, preparedness, physical impacts, health impacts, response, and recovery). Before Harvey, racial/ethnic minority and low SES populations had constrained access to resources for mitigating flood/hurricane hazards and exhibited less disaster preparedness relative to White and higher SES populations. The physical and health impacts associated with Harvey disproportionately affected minority and low SES groups. In addition, minority and low SES populations experienced heightened challenges in responding to and recovering from Harvey. Disparities documented within each phase of Harvey likely cascaded across this event for minority and low SES survivors, accumulating disadvantage in a manner that compounded their experiences of injustice. Patterns of na-tech disaster injustice in Harvey reflect preexisting racial/economic segregation and inequality along the Texas Gulf Coast and mirror patterns observed in Hurricane Katrina. Such disaster injustices derive from features shared by many U.S. Gulf Coast communities, including the presence of weak planning institutions, exploitative industries, degraded environments, spatial segregation, and stark inequalities. Thus, ameliorating regional disaster injustices requires tackling those root causes, while simultaneously improving organizational capabilities for disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

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