Author: Grace Enjia Xu
Editors: Yueshan Yu, Elizabeth Li
Artist: Grace Enjia Xu
In 1776, the United States of America was declared a nation where “all men are created equal,” and anyone could come to this land of opportunity to enjoy their five freedoms: religion, assembly, press, speech, and petition. However, from the rise of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King to the mistreatment of transcontinental Chinese railroad workers, and the loyalty questionnaires in Japanese internment camps, the history of the United States has proved that its government has not granted this equality to everyone. One major way racial segregation and inequality still exist today is through the environmental injustices of land use.
Land use, an inevitable and essential sector in everyone’s lives, can easily affect the quality of life for residents as it is heavily dependent on the neighborhood. But today, people with low incomes and people of color are still segregated and limited far away from certain white neighborhoods by the long-determined housing system set in the 20th century. This is because at the start of the 20th century, the American government decided to implement zoning ordinances, and cities between 1910 and 1917 passed these laws to prohibit people of colored groups from purchasing homes near white neighborhoods. Black residents were confined to squalid living conditions in limited amounts of homes and neighborhoods, while white communities were granted much larger land and sufficient amenities. Many authorities and real estate agents promoted racial segregation and purposely steered white and black clients to purchase homes in different areas to intensify racial segregation. While these racist ordinances and laws were obvious and remained influential for many years, the efficacy of segregation ordinances was effectively ended in 1917 by the Buchanan v. Warley court case, in which the United States Supreme Court marked unconstitutional the racial zoning ordinance adopted in Kentucky.
Despite the racial inequality of these zoning ordinances, why are land use inequalities considered environmental injustices? The answer lies in the fact that racial zoning and segregation did not stop after 1917. In 1934, redlining - a new round of racial segregation- began. During the Great Depression, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was established to help people in debt and with mortgages receive loans. To do this, bankers create zoning maps that shaded neighborhoods based on their property values and racial makeup. This then shifted into racial discrimination and segregation, as the majority of the red-lined poorest areas were black neighborhoods, and black people received discrimination as they were rejected from loan requests. Many architects and city planners intentionally built incinerators (burning waste combustion chambers) and toxic waste sites right next to redlined areas, causing severe pollution and health impacts to nearby residents.
Furthermore, because these neighborhoods are classified as squalid and unfavored, the government has allocated fewer natural resources and planted less vegetation. According to the National Library of Medicine, redlined neighborhoods suffer from higher pollution burdens (77% of redlined neighborhoods) compared to 18% of greenlined neighborhoods. They lack 74% less vegetation than other neighborhoods and experience a 52% higher temperature than their respective city’s average. This is because of the urban heat island effect, exacerbated by the lack of vegetation and other factors or infrastructure in the neighborhood that absorb and re-emit more heat to the sun compared to regular plants. This then causes environmental injustices for the residents in these areas, because they experience more environmental hazards and risks than average residents.
Therefore, despite the abolishment of redlining racial discrimination in 1968, the impacts of redlining and racial discrimination are still evident in our lives today. Decisions rooted in racism decades ago have still had lasting effects on the hazards in the environment people are living in today. People must suffer from unequal pollution, heat, and less vegetation. However, the American government is still continuing on its journey to help solve these issues in red-lining neighborhoods. In 2021, the Department of Justice launched the Combating Redlining Initiative, where federal agencies and attorneys enforce fair lending laws. In addition, in October 2023, the government announced that it had secured over $107 million in relief funds to compensate for the victims of the redlining policy. The Federal Reserve is also continuing to enforce fair lending laws to prevent redlining from happening again.
Citations:
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated
America. Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W.W. Norton & Company,
2018.
Estien, Cesar O, et al. “Historical Redlining Is Associated with Disparities in Environmental
Quality across California.” Environmental Science & Technology Letters, U.S. National
Library of Medicine, 19 Jan. 2024,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10867848/#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20we%
20found%20that%20intraurban,less%20vegetation%20(86%25%20vs%2012.
“The Origins of Urban Segregation in the United States.” NBER,
Aug. 2024.
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