Environmental Racism: Enforced by America, Upheld by Design

“Across the country, there are community outcries for clean air, clean water, and clean soil. On the west coast, residents of the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts are afraid to let their children play outside because of lead contamination risks from living on a former industrial site. In the south, Gordon Plaza residents in the ninth ward of New Orleans continue to demand relocation from the toxic landfill that they were sold homes on by the city. On the east coast, residents of the Mott Haven neighborhood in the South Bronx suffer some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the United States because of air pollution. Typically, mainstream media depicts these stories as isolated incidents, but they are not.

Environmental health concerns disproportionately impact low-income residents, black people, and other communities of color. Historically, these communities have been the target of discriminatory environmental practices, which forces them to live and work on and near some of the most hazardous land areas. While some of these environmental practices are illegal (such as Redlining, which was a decades long federal legislation that racially segregated American cities) their intentions are upheld by the lack of access and diversity in design professions (among other factors).”

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