Environmental Inequalities Andrew Hurley ISS 310 Section 3 Spring 2002 Tuesday March 18 Prof Alan Rudy Preface to Hurley The age of ecology is also the age of environmental inequality why isn t he surprised The issue for him is more who benefited and who suffered from social changes in relations with the environment than the recovery of a pristine nature or previous ecological equilibrium state Ch 1 Class Race and the Shaping of the Urban Landscape Tell me about his description of the Gary Products Inc chemical spill What happened How did people respond How does he interpret that response What is the importance of the structure of power relations in the production of the spill and responses to it Normal Accidents Environmental Dislocation and Political Power For Gary Products a manufacturer of cleaning solvents and antifreeze the spill was a minor inconvenience an expected cost of handling hazardous materials For the afflicted population the acid leak was one of many environmental mishaps that caused tremendous social dislocation and disruption occasionally of tragic proportions More striking however was the way in which the events of that April morning highlighted the hierarchy of environmental power in this manufacturing city 2 Urban Landscape Uses While some have sought to control urban space for the purpose of accumulating profits others have displayed more variegated motives including habitation recreation and the assertion of social status 3 Historically the ability to control others through the political process and through the dynamics of the capitalist marketplace gave certain groups a decisive advantage in the struggle to organize and manipulate the urban landscape 3 Class Ethnicity Race and Urban Landscapes Environments Although commercial capitalism had driven a sizable wedge between haves and have nots much earlier in the nation s history the limited skill requirements of mechanized manufacturing rapidly expanded and defined the laboring class by creating a virtual army of interchangeable workers with little bargaining power 3 The history of class relations is important in terms of the history of environmental relations because of the relations between class race and environmental geography With the slowing of European immigration after the outbreak of World War 1 manufacturers increasingly turned to African Americans to fill the lowest ranks of the industrial hierarchy thereby adding a racial dimension to urban social arrangements 4 Race Class and Landscape 5 million African Americans migrated to the north between 1919 and 1960 replacing European immigrants in the lowest rungs and most dangerous and polluted areas of the industrial division of labor and urban neighborhoods Further complicating the urban social structure was the emergence of a distinct white collar middle class in the early to mid twentieth century 4 The development of ethnically and racially divided industrial divisions of labor necessitated the development of a managerial class from the higher ethnic racial and income ranks of the working class The Middle Class and Landscape Whereas small proprietors had once set the standards of appropriate behavior and aspirations among these of the middling rank salaried managerial employees working for large corporations and government institutions now defined middle class values and styles according to their distinctive needs Proprietors C M C Productive Ownership Tend to reinvest in their businesses Salaried Workers C M C w o Prod Ownership Tend to increase consumption In contrast to the business class which championed an ethic of hard work and thrift members of the white collar middle class generally satisfied their social aspirations through participation in the expanding culture of consumption 45 Class Race and Landscape By the twentieth century large lot zoning and the liberal use of restrictive covenants in many cities ensured that elite neighborhoods would retain their white homogeneity Working class whites on the other hand relied on discriminatory real estate practices to separate themselves from racial minorities of comparable economic standing 5 Residential separations and discrimination divisions of consumption Class Race and Safety Health and Amenities Hurley argues that the power of industry was such that they were 1 able to obtain all the natural resources and industrial landscapes they desired 2 generate pretty much all the pollution that was cost effective and implicitly or explicitly 3 control the courts and legislatures to maintain that power He argues that this situation left the working class struggling within itself for relative workplace safety environmental health and residential amenities all of which made race class divisions worse Struggles over Landscape from Hurley Immigrant Eastern Europeans in Chicago Poor African Americans in East St Louis Pennsylvania mill town workers Gary s immigrant Black and later Mexican American worker residents Post WWII Pollution Pollutants The post war boom increased to volume of pre war pollution particularly in relation to depression era reductions in production Also The postwar boom in plastics chemicals drugs food additives fabrics and pesticides for example introduced a host of synthetic compounds into the environment Many of these new chemical compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs polybrominated biphenyls PBBs dichloro diphenyl trichloro ethane DDT and Kepone were later linked to serious medical disorders such as cancer brain damage and liver failure 7 Many of these were more toxic and more stable than older pollutants making where one lived that much more important Class Race and Pollution The processes of economic growth and increased pollution generated greater classbased union style or civil rights focused struggle for a piece of the pie than it did environmentally based struggle for a more healthy work and residential environment but that there was an increase in environmental and social health concerns If you got your piece of the pie you ought to earn a cleaner workplace and be able to buy a cleaner residence if you didn t you couldn t Class Race and Environmentalism Hurley also argues that the middle class culture of consumption meant that visible environmental concerns were about life outside of production wilderness parks first nature rather than about industry communities and second nature This meant that those who could afford and those who would be welcome and