Landlord Arson Fueled by Insurance Redlining Devastated Bronx Communities

Pod Save the People · December 16, 2025 · Listen to Original Episode →

Original Title:

TL;DR

Landlords in the 1970s, incentivized by expensive "subprime" insurance plans, systematically burned down approximately 100,000 units of housing in the Bronx to profit from insurance payouts.
Insurance redlining, distinct from mortgage redlining, created a market where landlords could profit from arson, demonstrating how financial infrastructure can shape urban landscapes and disproportionately harm communities.
Community organizing, exemplified by groups like the Mid-Bronx Desperados, was crucial in identifying and pressuring policymakers to address landlord arson, though state intervention was ultimately needed to remove the profit motive.
Public housing, often vilified, proved to be the safest place during the arson wave, contradicting narratives of its failure and suggesting its potential as a resilient housing model.
The narrative that tenants burned down their own neighborhoods obscured the widespread landlord arson, a myth perpetuated by policymakers and enabling landlords to redirect blame and avoid accountability.
The fires terrorized communities, forcing residents into a state of "bruising vigilance" with packed suitcases and children sleeping in street clothes, highlighting the profound human toll of profit-driven destruction.

Deep Dive

The core argument of "Through the Fire w/ Bench Ansfield" is that the wave of urban arson in the 1970s, particularly in the Bronx, was not primarily driven by tenant unrest or vandalism, but by landlords deliberately burning down their own properties for profit through insurance claims. This challenges the dominant narrative that blamed marginalized communities, revealing a systemic issue rooted in insurance redlining and the financial incentives created by a flawed "fair plan" system. The second-order implication is that this deliberate destruction, enabled by a flawed financial and regulatory system, had devastating and lasting impacts on urban communities, particularly Black and Brown ones, while simultaneously demonstrating the unexpected resilience and protective function of public housing.

The widespread arson in cities like the Bronx, where approximately 100,000 housing units were lost, was fueled by an incentive structure that made burning buildings more profitable than maintaining them. This was largely due to insurance redlining, which began after the urban uprisings of the 1960s. Insurers, in a state of "racialized panic," fled urban areas, leading to the creation of the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan. This public-private partnership, intended as an anti-redlining measure, provided expensive and shoddy insurance, essentially a subprime version of insurance. Landlords could then collect payouts from these FAIR plans, making arson an economically rational, albeit heinous, decision. This system of "briefcase minstrelsy" allowed landlords to profit from destruction while redirecting blame onto tenants, creating a narrative that obscured their culpability and reinforced negative stereotypes about marginalized communities.

The toll on communities was immense. Residents lived in a state of "bruising vigilance," constantly aware of the predictable patterns of fires, sometimes packing suitcases and sleeping in their clothes, ready to flee. The fires terrorized neighborhoods, block by block, yet deaths were often lower than expected because landlords aimed for profit, not fatalities, as increased scrutiny followed fatalities. Ironically, public housing, often vilified during this era, proved to be the only safe haven, as it was immune to these profit-driven fires. This finding challenges the prevailing narrative of public housing's failure and suggests its potential as a more stable and protective model. The fires eventually subsided not solely through grassroots organizing, though groups like Jennevieve Brooks's Mid-Bronx Desperados were crucial in identifying the problem, but through state intervention. Policy reforms, municipal anti-arson strike forces, and tax lien legislation made arson less profitable. Furthermore, the insurance industry itself faced public relations crises, leading to increased scrutiny and a reduction in payouts for suspicious fires, effectively neutralizing the profit motive by the early 1980s. The narrative underscores how systemic financial structures, masked by insurance jargon and racial bias, can lead to profound community devastation, highlighting the need to critically examine the "hidden infrastructure of finance" that shapes our cities.

Action Items

Audit insurance redlining: Analyze 3-5 cities for historical insurance redlining practices and their impact on property values and community disinvestment.
Create landlord arson incentive model: Develop a framework to quantify the profit motive for landlords to commit arson, considering insurance payouts versus property value.
Document community anti-arson organizing: Compile case studies of 3-5 community-led organizations that combatted arson in the 1970s, detailing their strategies and impact.
Evaluate public housing resilience: Compare fire incident rates in public housing versus privately owned buildings in the 1970s to assess structural resilience.
Research current insurance market practices: Investigate current insurance industry regulations and practices to identify potential vulnerabilities for predatory behavior.

Key Quotes

"in the bronx roughly 100,000 units of housing were lost over the course of about a decade which is the equivalent to like a city like new haven connecticut burning down in its entirety twice right and actually this wasn't all just landlord arson there were different sources of the fires and also some of this was just landlords abandoning their buildings but the most destructive fires were set by landlords and in general landlords disinvestment from their buildings was kind of the the catalytic factor the precipitating factor that set you know these buildings on their road to to ruin"

Historian Bench Ansfield explains the immense scale of housing loss in the Bronx during the 1970s, emphasizing that landlord-set fires were a primary driver of this destruction. Ansfield highlights that this was not solely due to arson but also encompassed widespread landlord disinvestment, setting the stage for the eventual ruin of these buildings.

"so you know bronxites figured out before before anyone that these fires were being lit for profit i tell the story in the book one one bronx tenant whose name was jennevieve brooks and she lived in the cortona park section of the bronx and by the mid 1960s started to watch white flight just ravage the neighborhood she started a tenant union to try to save her building but realized that was kind of thinking too small so then she tried to organize a block association still like wasn't wasn't thinking big enough so she resolved to start a neighborhood wide organization specifically for youth she called it a seabury daycare and this daycare center effectively became the the kind of unlikely vanguard in this fight against arson"

Bench Ansfield recounts the story of Jennevieve Brooks, a Bronx tenant who recognized the profit motive behind the fires and took proactive steps to combat them. Ansfield details how Brooks, initially forming a tenant union and then a block association, ultimately established a youth organization that became instrumental in uncovering the pattern of arson.

"so insurance redlining began actually later than mortgage redlining it began in the late 1940s and it continued for the next two decades really until the 1960s when the uprisings of that decade basically accelerated it so much that the insurance market in in american cities just kind of dried up almost entirely right insurers were in what i what i call a racialized panic right the dollar losses from the uprisings of the 1960s weren't actually that high compared to like a natural disaster for instance but insurers were just totally convinced that unrelenting black revolt would continue to shape american cities forever essentially so they just fled"

Bench Ansfield clarifies that insurance redlining, distinct from mortgage redlining, began in the late 1940s and intensified through the 1960s. Ansfield explains that insurers fled American cities due to a "racialized panic" following the 1960s uprisings, believing that Black unrest would perpetually destabilize urban areas.

"and so tenants watching this had to be really vigilant like they had to cultivate what i think of as this bruising vigilance just in order to stay alive and the kind of the most damning detail or kind of the most tragic detail the one that i couldn't shake when i first started encountering it in the archive and i can't tell you how many times it came up was parents putting their children to bed wearing shoes or or wearing street clothes right like ready to jump up and escape their apartment as fast as possible families would keep suitcases packed by the door just trying to imagine that sort of vigilance and maintaining it for years right that that's what it took to stay alive is i mean it's it's just it actually breaks you when you really take take in that detail"

Bench Ansfield describes the profound psychological toll on communities living amidst the rampant arson, detailing the "bruising vigilance" required for survival. Ansfield highlights the heartbreaking practice of parents preparing children to flee at a moment's notice, with packed suitcases by the door, illustrating the constant state of fear and readiness for escape.

"and actually the biggest way to do that was simply by hiring what they called torches to do the burning for them torches were used usually young men or boys who lived in the targeted areas right sometimes in the building itself sometimes these were like you know like 13 year olds they would get paid like sometimes as little as like 10 or 20 bucks to burn down a building and because of the way that arson laws worked in the 1970s it was exceedingly difficult to incriminate anybody but the person who literally struck the match and so landlords could really insulate themselves from prosecution simply by commissioning somebody else to to light the fires for them"

Bench Ansfield reveals a key strategy employed by landlords to profit from arson: hiring "torches," often young individuals paid a small sum to set fires. Ansfield explains that due to the legal framework of the 1970s, which made it difficult to prosecute anyone other than the direct perpetrator, landlords could effectively distance themselves from criminal liability by outsourcing the act of arson.

Resources

External Resources

Books

Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield - Discussed as the subject of an interview, detailing a wave of fires in American cities in the 1970s and challenging common narratives about their causes.

Articles & Papers

"The Benign Neglect Memo" (Memo to Richard Nixon) by Daniel Patrick Moynihan - Referenced as an example of policymakers blaming tenants and residents for rising fire rates in the 1970s, using terms like "vandalism," "riots," and "pyromania."
Rolling Stone article about Taylor Swift - Mentioned in relation to accusations that the article, which defended Taylor Swift against accusations of Nazism, was a publicity-driven piece potentially involving AI.

People

Bench Ansfield - Author and historian interviewed about their book "Born in Flames."
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to his desire for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to amend its founding documents to prevent investigations into him and his officials, and to drop investigations of Israeli leaders.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the US blowing up ships and boats in the Caribbean, with his administration's official position being the prevention of drug smugglers.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump - Mentioned in relation to the idea that the state has a right to kill and under what circumstances.
Donald Trump