To help communities unfairly burdened with environmental hazards, policymakers should forget race or class thresholds and target the waterfront

Are areas of greater environmental pollution necessarily associated with poorer and minority communities? While this is undoubtedly the case in some parts of the U.S., new research from Diane Sicotte shows that this link is by no means a universal one. By examining the environmental hazards in 366 communities in Philadelphia, she finds that the 39 communities closest to the Delaware River were those with the greatest environmental burden. She argues that the location of these communities was the most important factor, not their racial or ethnic composition, nor how poor they were. She writes that the reasons for the present pattern of Philadelphia’s environmental inequality lie in the city’s near two centuries of industrial history which encouraged industrial land use on the waterfront, and that policymakers should focus on these areas for redevelopment and regeneration.