Phoenix Area Environmental Justice Project Series
Description:
This project is a continuation of a multi-year series of environmental justice projects on the Phoenix metropolitan area. Currently we are examining the sociospatial distribution of large manufacturing facilities in the Phoenix area in relation to the demographic make-up of proximate neighborhoods. We are examining the changing pattern of toxic emissions from TRI facilities and how reductions in emissions affect the spatial patterns of environmental injustice in the city. While there have been distinct reductions in the total volume of toxic emissions from such facilities, the toxicity of those emissions has increased as has the use of off-site transfers of toxic materials. This shifts the burdens of industrial hazards both within the city, particularly along hazardous cargo routes, and to other locations that receive the toxins. The research shows that African American and Latino populations remain overburdened from toxic emissions in spite of apparent reductions in those emissions.
Presentations and Events:
“Ten Years After: The TRI and Changing Hazardscapes in Phoenix, AZ.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers. April 2005. Denver, Colorado.
“The Geography of Despair: Environmental Racism and the Making of South Phoenix, Arizona, USA.” Paper presented at Nature, Science and Social Movements conference. Mytilene, Lesbos, Greece. June 2004.
“Toxic Tracts: The Development of Environmental Inequality in Phoenix, Arizona” Paper Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, March, 2002.
Grineski, S., Bolin, B. & Boone, C. (2007). Criteria air pollution and marginalized populations: Environmental inequity in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Social Science Quarterly, 88(2), 535-554.
Bolin, B. (2006) Race, class, and disaster vulnerability. In Rodriguez, Quarantelli and Dynes (Eds.), Handbook of disaster research (pp. 113-130). New York: Springer.
Grineski, S., Bolin, B. & Agadjanian, V. (2006). Tuberculosis and urban growth: Class, race and disease in early Phoenix, Arizona." Health and Place, (12), 603-629
Bolin, R., Grineski, S., & Collins, T. (2005). The geography of despair: Environmental racism and the making of South Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Human Ecology Review, 12(2), 156-168.