Extended Sacrifice Zones: Pipeline Proximity and Environmental Justice in the Age of Planetary Urbanization

• In Event: 1461 - Environmental Change and Inequality

Abstract

Contrary to the localized nature of most environmental justice issues, oil and gas pipelines are distinct in that they span multiple geographic scales. This paper employs methodological and theoretical approaches suited for examining the multiscalar nature of pipelines as an environmental justice issue. Using geolocated pipeline data from the Energy Information Administration, I conducted spatial regression analyses at national and regional scales to determine whether pipelines are disproportionately located in counties with sociodemographic characteristics typical of environmental justice communities. National-level analysis shows that pipeline placement is positively associated with higher proportions of non-white residents and negatively associated with median home values. Regional analyses reveal further complexity, showing only degrees of consistency with national-level results. Against the metatheoretical backdrop of planetary urbanization, combined with Manuel Castells’ distinction between the space of flows and the spaces of places, I claim that the placement of oil and gas pipelines across the United States, part of the space of flows, has characteristics of a systemic environmental justice issue, but regional specificity informs the exact form in which it manifests locally, or in the space of places. Due to this variegated form of environmental injustice, I term the places pipelines traverse as “sacrifice zones in transit.”

Author

• Taylor Braswell, Northeastern University