Which came first, people or pollution? A review of theory and evidence from longitudinal environmental justice studies

Authors

Paul Mohai, University of Michigan-Ann ArborFollow
Robin Saha, University of Montana - MissoulaFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Environmental Research Letters

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Publication Date

12-22-2015

Volume

10

Issue

12

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Demography, Population, and Ecology | Environmental Law | Environmental Policy | Environmental Studies | Geographic Information Sciences | Human Geography | Inequality and Stratification | Other Political Science | Place and Environment | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Race and Ethnicity | Urban Studies and Planning

Abstract

A considerable number of quantitative analyses have been conducted in the past several decades that demonstrate the existence of racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of a wide variety of environmental hazards. The vast majority of these have been cross-sectional, snapshot studies employing data on hazardous facilities and population characteristics at only one point in time. Although some limited hypotheses can be tested with cross-sectional data, fully understanding how present-day disparities come about requires longitudinal analyses that examine the demographic characteristics of sites at the time of facility siting and track demographic changes after siting. Relatively few such studies exist and those that do exist have often led to confusing and contradictory findings. In this paper we review the theoretical arguments, methods, findings, and conclusions drawn from existing longitudinal environmental justice studies. Our goal is to make sense of this literature and to identify the direction future research should take in order to resolve confusion and arrive at a clearer understanding of the processes and contributory factors by which present-day racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of environmental hazards have come about. Such understandings also serve as an important step in identifying appropriate and effective societal responses to ameliorate environmental disparities.

Keywords

environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental disparities, longitudinal studies, racial disparities, environmental justice theory, environmental justice evidence

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/125011

Rights

© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Paul Mohai and Robin Saha 2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 125011