Yi-Fu Tuan Lecture
Race, Risk, and Redlining: Insurance Maps and the Racial Capitalism of Risk Management in Urban America
Event Details
Date
Friday, November 14, 2025
Time
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Location
Description
Assistant Professor Jack Swab, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
For over a century, Sanborn fire insurance maps underwrote racial capitalism and insurance redlining in more than 12,000 U.S. cities. Far more widespread than the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps of the Great Depression most associated with redlining, fire insurance maps embedded racialized logics of risk that shaped underwriting across residential, commercial, and industrial properties.
For over a century, Sanborn fire insurance maps underwrote racial capitalism and insurance redlining in more than 12,000 U.S. cities. Far more widespread than the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps of the Great Depression most associated with redlining, fire insurance maps embedded racialized logics of risk that shaped underwriting across residential, commercial, and industrial properties.
Cost
Free
Contact
Accessibility
We value inclusion and access for all participants and are pleased to provide reasonable accommodations for this event. Please call 608-262-2138 or email news@geography.wisc.edu to make a disability-related accommodation request. Requests should be made by Friday, October 31, 2025, though reasonable effort will be made to support late accommodation requests.