The racist historical practice of redlining continues to be associated with environmental inequities in urban landscapes, including disparities in infrastructure quality, pollution exposure and ecosystem health. Past studies have observed that ecosystems in historically redlined neighborhoods experience negatively-altered environmental conditions. These anthropogenically-influenced conditions can disrupt every level of the affected ecosystems, including microbial communities. Aquatic freshwater bacteria specifically respond rapidly to changes in nutrients, temperature and contamination. In Professor Anika Bratt's lab during the summer of 2025, I explored whether less diverse aquatic bacterial communities were correlated with historically redlined neighborhoods.