Race and Environmental Justice in Buffalo, NY: A ZIP Code and Historical Analysis of Ecological Hazards

Abstract

ABSTRACT An analysis of toxic release inventories (TRI) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-regulated facilities in Buffalo, NY, fails to show evidence of environmental racism. Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color communities (Bryant 1995 Bryant , B. , ed. 1995 . Environmental justice: Issues, policies, and solutions . Washington , DC : Island Press . [Google Scholar], 6). The data do indicate some evidence of environmental classism, the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on lower income populations. The absence of environmental racism can be understood as the product of historical residential and labor-market segregation that excluded African Americans from residing in industrialized sections of the city. Institutionalized racism, while acting as a barrier to upward social mobility, has had the effect of insulating large portions of Buffalo's African American population from disproportionate exposure to ecological hazards.