Week 7: Impacts of Housing Segregation and Environmental Racism

Question 1

Impacts of Segregation: Why is it a problem?

Answer 1

Spacial Mismatch: less jobs where minorities live

• surbanization of Whites followed by jobs
• deindustrialization: blue-collar jobs eliminated or moved to other countries
• lower wages for remaining service jobs
• no access to transportation
• limited access to housing in surburbs (cost, zoning)

Diminished intergroup contact:

• lower tolerance toward out-groups
• prejudices and stereotypes go unchallenged
• less opportunity for interracial friendship

Lower quality of life and opportunities for minorities:

• majority-minority neighborhoods tend to have fewer services and facilities, poorer schools, higher rates of poverty
• concentrated poverty: higher crime rates and violence, lack of role models, lower tax base
• environmental racism: disproportional exposure to pollution and environmental hazards

Question 2

Efforts Toward Integration: How to reduce segregation?

Answer 2

Legal Efforts

• ban on legal discrimination
• enforcement of Fair Housing Act (1968, 1988)
• lawsuits against discriminatory practices
• affirmative marketing ordinances
• detect discrimination: non-profit organizations, testing studies, HUD

Urban Policies: zoning and financing

• inclusionary zoning (mixed-income housing)
• prioritize low-interest loans to applicants willing to integrate

Reduce levels of prejudice

• education
• contact
• campaign
• ban legal discrimination

Question 3

Environmental Racism

Answer 3

Environmental policy or practice that disproportionally affects minorities.
- disporportional exposure of minority communities to degraded environment, environmental hazards, and pollution

Examples:

• areas with higher percentage of minorities have higher concentration of hazardous air pollution
• minorities are more likely to live in areas with abandoned toxic waste sites
• most brownfields are located in or near minority communities
• minorities are more likely to live in environmental hazardous areas (e.g., subject to flood, land slides)