Add COVID-19 to the long list of things affected by the racist government practice of "redlining" minority neighborhoods starting back in the 1930s.

Banks restricted lending in those places, resulting in decades of disinvestment that researchers have connected to higher poverty, worse schools and a host of other negative outcomes.

And now, two researchers at the University of Colorado Denver say those vulnerabilities have weakened formerly redlined neighborhoods' ability to handle crises like the coronavirus.

"We know that there are disadvantaged neighborhoods around the country, and that's where we really need to strengthen our investments and really put our money where our mouth is," Jeremy Németh, associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Colorado Denver, told Colorado Matters host Andrea Dukakis.

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