The Tradeoff Paradox: Racialized Poverty Segregation and Industrial Facilities in the U.S. Over Time

• In Event: 1183 - Section on Environomental Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Public Health and Environmental Justice

Abstract

Scholars interested in understanding the unequal exposure to environmental harms by race and class have often relied on urban sociological theory. Specifically, the argument that the outmigration of middle-class African Americans from America’s industrial areas, as well as the decline in manufacturing employment in these communities, concentrated minority poverty around industrial sites. These nested, community-level, processes have not yet been measured as such in the environmental inequality literature. This paper addresses this limitation by using spatial measures of poverty segregation between and within racial groups. Multilevel models are presented that examine how the density of industrial facilities relates to: the economic health of a host-tract, the broader economic context of the county, and the level of poverty segregation (both within and between racial/ethnic groups). Results demonstrate there is a spatial separation of the economic benefits and environmental harms across the U.S. a pattern has remained consistent over time.

Author

• Kerry Ard, Ohio State University