Environmental Inequality in Metropolitan America

Abstract

This study compares the environmental hazard burden experienced by Blacks, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Whites in each of the 329 metropolitan areas in the continental United States, using toxicity-weighted air pollutant concentration data drawn from the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators project to determine whether and to what degree environmental inequality exists in each of these metropolitan areas. After demonstrating that environmental inequality outcomes vary widely across metropolitan areas and that each group in the analysis experiences a high pollution disadvantage in multiple metropolitan areas and a medium pollution disadvantage in many metropolitan areas, the authors test three hypotheses that make predictions about the role that residential segregation and racial income inequality play in producing environmental inequality. Using logistic regression models to test these hypotheses, the authors find that residential segregation and racial income inequality are relatively poor predictors of environmental inequality outcomes, that residential segregation can increase and decrease racial/ethnic group proximity to environmental hazards, and that the roles income inequality and residential segregation play in producing environmental inequality vary from one racial/ethnic group to another.

By all measures: an examination of the relationship between segregation and health risk from air pollution

“…These results are consistent with Morello-Frosch and Jesdale (2006), who showed that the segregation of a metropolitan area was associated with an increase in the health risk from air toxins for all racial groups. However, these results dispute more recent conclusions that suggest those metropolitan areas with higher levels of racial segregation of African-Americans are no more unequal in their exposure to air toxins than areas with lower segregation (Downey et al 2008).…”

“…This allows for investigation of whether there is an added risk of living in a block group with relatively more African-Americans, in a more segregated metro area, a question previously examined in this literature (Downey 2008). If the coefficient on this variable is positive, it would mean that if you compared two block groups with the same relative proportion of African-Americans, the one in a metro area with a higher segregation level will have a greater risk from air toxins.…”

“…More recently, scholars have come to different conclusions. Using 2000 census data, and over 600 chemicals listed in the 2000 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data, Downey et al (2008) linked the average toxic concentration for 329 metropolitan areas in the United States with dissimilarity index measures for several racial/ethnic groups. The authors concluded that, ''metropolitan area residential segregation levels and metropolitan area income inequality levels are relatively poor predictors of metropolitan area environmental inequality outcomes'' (Downey et al 2008;p.…”

“…Downey et al (2008) examined how differential exposure to modeled Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) data varied by the dissimilarity index across 329 metro areas in the year 2000. The authors concluded that residential segregation was a poor predictor of the ratio of exposure between African-Americans and whites.…”

“…While there has been very little research examining social capital and pollution, those studies that have been done have found decreased voter turn-out was associated with the expansion of hazardous waste facilities (Hamilton 1995). Downey et al (2008) provides one of the only studies to examine how pollution exposure varies by a measure of exposure. The authors found that their results using the isolation index were not much different when compared to the dissimilarity index, and neither measure explained much of the racial disparity in exposure to air toxins.…”