Environmental Health Inequalities and Discriminatory Zoning: Identifying Systemic Barriers for Environmental Health Equity through Community-Engaged Research

Abstract

Environmental justice research has exposed that environmental health inequalities persist for historically redlined communities due to proximity to heavy industrial areas. Communities of color are systematically exposed to air pollution due to structural environmental inequalities. Disparate exposure to legacy pollution is often overlooked as a key contributor of racial health disparities. The underlying historical mechanisms and systemic barriers that perpetuate environmental health injustices have been less identified in critical environmental justice research including how to confront state complicity. I use historical archives, community reports, public health research, environmental data, media articles, industry complaint documentation, and other government documents as primary data sources supplemented with purposive, semi-structured interviews with state legislators, city council leadership, the municipal planning department, and the county health department to identify systemic barriers for environmental health equity. I find that historic processes of racial residential segregation imbedded structural environmental inequalities within neighborhoods, and institutional inaction, industrial prioritization, regulatory gaslighting, and discriminatory negligence of zoning conditions are systemic obstructions to environmental justice. My findings are critical for implementing existing federal civil rights protections, developing environmental-justice based state policies, and enforcing current ordinances for industrial areas adjacent to communities of color to protect environmental health.