Issues of Classification in Environmental Equity: How We Manage is How We Measure

Journal Article•

Issues of Classification in Environmental Equity: How We Manage is How We Measure

01 Jan 1994-Fordham Urban Law Journal-Vol. 21, Iss: 3, pp 633-669

TL;DR: This Article addresses how concepts of race and ethnicity have been operationalized as a basis for defining and locating subpopulations (either explicitly or implicitly) for the purpose of analyzing environmental equity issues, and recommends some future directions.

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Abstract: This Article addresses how concepts of race and ethnicity have been operationalized as a basis for defining and locating subpopulations (either explicitly or implicitly) for the purpose of analyzing environmental equity issues, and recommends some future directions. Part II focuses on how subpopulations are currently defined and on some problems encountered to date. The implications of these inconsistencies on the accuracy of health and environmental risk measures for a given subpopulation are addressed. Part III focuses on how spatial areas have been defined to aggregate these subpopulations within confined geographic boundaries.

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Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California

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Laura Pulido¹•Institutions (1)

University of Southern California¹

01 Mar 2000-Annals of The Association of American Geographers

TL;DR: The authors argue that although racism is rarely explicitly discussed, a normative conceptualization of racism informs the research and that this prevailing conception overly narrow and restrictive, it also denies the spatiality of racism.

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Abstract: Geographic studies of environmental racism have focused on the spatial relationships between environmental hazards and community demographics in order to determine if inequity exists. Conspicuously absent within this literature, however, is any substantive discussion of racism. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming in two ways. I first investigate how racism is understood and expressed in the literature. I argue that although racism is rarely explicitly discussed, a normative conceptualization of racism informs the research. Not only is this prevailing conception overly narrow and restrictive, it also denies the spatiality of racism. Consequently, my second goal is to demonstrate how various forms of racism contribute to environmental racism. In addition to conventional understandings of racism, I emphasize white privilege, a highly structural and spatial form of racism. Using Los Angeles as a case study, I examine how whites have secured relatively cleaner environments by moving away from older in...

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1,159 citations

Cites background from "Issues of Classification in Environ..."

...…any substantive discussion of racism itself (Baden and Coursey 1997; Pulido et al. 1996; Hamilton 1995; Krieg 1995; Bullard 1990; UCC 1987), 6 although others have probed the nature of race and racism in general (Szasz and Meuser 1997; Goldman 1996; Pulido 1996; Bullard 1994; Zimmerman 1994)....
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...although others have probed the nature of race and racism in general (Bullard, 1994; Goldman, 1996; Pulido, 1996; Szasz and Meuser, 1997; Zimmerman, 1994 )....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Beyond Distribution and Proximity: Exploring the Multiple Spatialities of Environmental Justice

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Gordon Walker¹•Institutions (1)

Lancaster University¹

01 Sep 2009-Antipode

TL;DR: In this paper, the scope of socio-environmental concerns included within an environmental justice framing has broadened and theoretical understandings of what defines and constitutes environmental injustice have diversified.

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Abstract: Over the last decade the scope of the socio-environmental concerns included within an environmental justice framing has broadened and theoretical understandings of what defines and constitutes environmental injustice have diversified. This paper argues that this substantive and theoretical pluralism has implications for geographical inquiry and analysis, meaning that multiple forms of spatiality are entering our understanding of what it is that substantiates claims of environmental injustice in different contexts. In this light the simple geographies and spatial forms evident in much "first-generation" environmental justice research are proving insufficient. Instead a richer, multidimensional understanding of the different ways in which environmental justice and space are co-constituted is needed. This argument is developed by analysing a diversity of examples of socio-environmental concerns within a framework of three different notions of justice-as distribution, recognition and procedure. Implications for the strategies of environmental justice activism for the globalisation of the environmental justice frame and for future geographical research are considered.

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526 citations

Cites background from "Issues of Classification in Environ..."

...Pathways of pollutants are far more involved than this, leading to exposures and potential impacts that cannot be captured through simple proximity measures (Bowen 2002; Bowen and Wells 2002; Brown 1995; Liu 2001; Zimmerman 1994)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Race, class and environmental justice:

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Susan L. Cutter¹•Institutions (1)

University of South Carolina¹

01 Mar 1995-Progress in Human Geography

TL;DR: The Environmental Equity Workgroup at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as mentioned in this paper evaluated the evidence that racial minority and low-income groups bore a disproportionate burden of environmental risks and identified factors that contributed to different risk burdens.

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Abstract: The growth of the environmental justice movement in the US surprised even the most seasoned of policy-makers by its speed and the magnitude of its impact on US national policy (Russell, 1989; Inhaber, 1990; Grossman, 1991; Goldman, 1992). Responding to intense public pressure from environmental and civil rights activists for close to a decade, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established an Environmental Equity Workgroup in 1990. The workgroup had two primary tasks:1 to evaluate the evidence that racial minority and low-income groups bore a disproportionate burden of environmental risks; and2 to identify factors that contributed to different risk burdens and to suggest strategies for improvement.

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424 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Scale frames and counter-scale frames: constructing the problem of environmental injustice

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Hilda E. Kurtz¹•Institutions (1)

University of Georgia¹

01 Nov 2003-Political Geography

TL;DR: In this article, a case study of a controversy over a proposed polyvinylchloride production facility in rural Convent, Louisiana, the authors develop the concept of scale frames and counter-scale frames as strategic discursive representations of a social grievance that do the work of naming, blaming, and claiming with meaningful reference to particular geographic scales.

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316 citations

Cites background from "Issues of Classification in Environ..."

...The notion of an inequitable distribution raises difficult questions on how best to measure and address environmental inequities across space (Zimmerman, 1994), and environmental equity studies indicate racial disparities at some scales of resolution and analysis, and class-based disparities at others (Bowen, Salling, Haynes, & Cyran, 1995; Cutter, Clark, & Holm, 1996; McMaster, Leitner, & Sheppard, 1997; Tiefenbacher & Hagelman, 1999)....
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...The notion of an inequitable distribution raises difficult questions on how best to measure and address environmental inequities across space (Zimmerman, 1994), and environmental equity studies indicate racial disparities at some scales of resolution and analysis, and class-based disparities at…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

Asthma and air pollution in the Bronx: methodological and data considerations in using GIS for environmental justice and health research.

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Juliana Maantay¹•Institutions (1)

City University of New York¹

01 Mar 2007-Health & Place

TL;DR: Methods of environmental justice assessment with Geographic Information Systems is examined, using research on the spatial correspondence between asthma and air pollution in the Bronx, New York City as a case study, to discuss issues of spatial extent and resolution and different approaches to delineating exposure.

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270 citations

Cites background from "Issues of Classification in Environ..."

...The paper, ‘‘How We Manage is How We Measure,’’ discusses this problem in detail (Zimmerman, 1994), explaining that the selection of political jurisdictional (e.g. municipal or county) ARTICLE IN PRESS J. Maantay / Health & Place 13 (2007) 32–56 39 boundaries versus administrative (e.g. census…...
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...‘‘Even where similar units of analysis are chosen, e.g. census tracts, differences in how these units are combined have produced substantial differences in the portrayal of the prevalence of minority populations relative to the locations of waste sites’’ (Zimmerman, 1994, p. 645)....
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