The Community Reinvestment Act: Extraordinary Leverage for Disenfranchised Communities
Public Deposited- Creator
-
Warren, Debbie
- Other Affiliation: Co-Director, North Carolina Client and Community Development Center
- Abstract
- In America, access to credit is one of the few routes to economic progress for those not born into wealth. For communities in our country, access to credit is critical if homes will be built and maintained; businesses will emerge, survive and grow; family farms will continue; and children will be educated. The existence of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) reflects the recognition that access to credit in the United States is an uneven playing field, with minorities, in particular, handicapped by inadequate net worth, little collateral, bumpy credit histories, high debt burdens and minimal relationships with key decision-makers. Furthermore, recent studies and news stories have documented the evidence of racial bias in lending. The CRA has proved to be a potent tool to help level out this uneven playing field, leading to new flows of credit in inner-city, rural and minority communities. The intent of this article is to: 1) provide background information on the CRA; 2) discuss its use in North Carolina, home of two of the nation's largest banks; 3) foreshadow what the future holds for CRA users; and 4) highlight how planning skills are critical to the advocacy process and how planners in the public and non
- Date of publication
- 1994
- DOI
- Resource type
- Article
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Journal title
- Carolina Planning Journal
- Journal volume
- 19
- Journal issue
- 2
- Page start
- 41
- Page end
- 45
- Language
- English
- Digital collection
- Carolina Planning Journal
Relations
- Parents:
- In Collection:
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