Examining the Relationship Between Racialized Poverty Segregation and Hazardous Industrial Facilities in the U.S. Over Time

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 Whites and African Americans from America’s industrial areas, and 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 article 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 is related 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 a spatial separation of the economic benefits and environmental harms across the United States, a pattern that has remained consistent over time.