Abstract
Abstract
Over the next 25 years, the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to add two million new people, mostly in compact urban centers along transportation corridors. While this approach supports regional climate change mitigation goals, it also poses hazards to community health by siting new housing near sources of air pollution such as freeways, rail yards, ports, and distribution centers. This will exacerbate poor health outcomes in low-income communities of color, where many already live in housing with unsafe levels of indoor and outdoor pollution. In recent years the Ditching Dirty Diesel Collaborative (DDD)—a regional coalition of environmental justice advocates, public health departments, and researchers in the Bay Area—has advanced a campaign to win pollution-free housing for all through policy change that secures healthier housing siting, design, and mitigations to reduce toxic exposure. DDD worked to answer two interrelated questions: 1) How can land use conflicts be avoided so that sensitive uses like housing are better sited and designed to reduce exposure to outdoor pollution? and 2) What tools are available to improve indoor air quality in new and existing housing in locations with poor outdoor air quality? By engaging regional planning agencies and affordable housing advocates, coalition members identified and advanced policies to build health-protective measures into local and regional transportation and land use planning guidelines. It also assesses strategies used to build a broader coalition of advocates, agencies, and decision makers to support pollution-free housing for all by reducing exposure to transportation-related pollutants in housing.
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