Redlined and disconnected: Historic housing discrimination and modern-day energy insecurity disparities in Minnesota's Twin Cities

Residential energy insecurity, the inability of a household to afford or access basic energy needs, results in households forgoing necessities, and in many cases, leads to households being entirely disconnected from utility service. While numerous studies have highlighted disparities in residential disconnections, few have examined the historical processes that may have shaped these patterns. One example is the legacy of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) ‘redlining’ maps, which were used to drive structural housing disinvestment in America's urban communities throughout the 20th century. This paper links these discriminatory housing practices with present-day levels of energy insecurity in Minnesota's Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Applying cluster analysis and spatial regression models to a novel census block group-level dataset, we first find that disconnections from electricity service for non-payment were highly prevalent and persistent in formerly yellowlined (C-graded) and redlined (D-graded) areas of the Twin Cities. Second, our spatial regression models reveal that associations between HOLC grades and disconnection rates persist even after accounting for contemporary neighborhood characteristics. Finally, we find that disparities in electric non-payment disconnection rates between HOLC grades widened in each subsequent year of study from 2021 to 2024. While these findings cannot isolate causality, they reveal that structural barriers rooted in historic housing discrimination continue to manifest in modern patterns of household energy insecurity. Our results demonstrate a need for energy insecurity research and policy to account for the geographic legacies of housing discrimination.