Spatial and Environmental Injustice in an American Metropolis: A ...

justice in industrial location decisions. It is only in recent years that southern politicians and economic developers have been forced by an emergent environmental activism to confront the adverse consequences of these unjust politics. Several civil and environmental rights activists and organizations have started to challenge this “productivism” or “develop-mentality” (Debal, 2009)—a mindset which steadfastly continues to measure the successes of the so-called “New South” (Roberts, 2007) based on a perpetual economic cycle of consumption and waste. One significant measure of the impact of this relentless process of “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey, 2003) of natural and social environments is the growing number of industrial, technological, and other types of pollutants which are being piled on the doorsteps of the most vulnerable groups and marginalized places. Thus, the legacy of Jim Crow policies continues to be reflected in current industrial location decisions. As a resident of the city of Tampa has pointed out, “black communities and other communities of color are bypassed, ignored” in industrial zoning decisions (Salarino, 2006).

While the long and painful history of social and environmental inequities is caused by a developmentalist ideology, no serious policy or political adjustments have been attempted to broaden and deepen our understanding of the relationship between the exploitation of the state and the exploitation of its social environment. Environmental justice issues and the rights of minority and low-income communities across the “Land of Sunshine [and] the State of Dreams” (Mormino, 2005) have not been addressed adequately. It is, therefore, not surprising that little systematic and detailed empirical research on social and environmental justice in Florida has been conducted, with the exception of a few studies which focus on the locations of manufacturing facilities (Pollock & Vittas, 1995) and abandoned