A few weeks ago, we explored redlining, a discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity.
Redlining goes back many decades and restricted where people could live, and resulted in people being denied the ability to live in a home they really wanted, simply because of where their house was located and their race.
At the time, I mentioned how we would soon have a show as a sort of companion piece on who historically has lived where, in terms of groups of people.
Siouxland Public Media Staion Mark Munger some months ago told me he wanted a show that digs into what people first lived in what downtown areas of the city, and how that evolved and changed over decades as the city's area and population grew.
So the time is at hand for that story, and the guests illuminating that history are Karen Mackey, the Executive Director of the Sioux City Human Rights Commission, and Sioux City Public Museum Archives Manager Tom Munson.
They begin with the history on when Sioux City became a town in the 1850s, and where the first people lived as it grew from a few hundred to a few thousand people and on up over the late1800s.
Munson and Mackey share details on what kind of people, in terms of ethnicities and nations from which theory hailed, first lived in some portions of the downtown or South Bottoms.
Another discussion topic involves the factors determining what people lived where.
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 114.
