| Chapter 1: | Spatial and Environmental Justice in the Metropolis |
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Chapter 1
Spatial and Environmental
Justice in the Metropolis
Jayajit Chakraborty and M. Martin Bosman
Since the 1980s, concerns regarding inequities in sociospatial distribution of various environmental hazards and risks in the United States have spawned passionate social activism, triggered heated policy debates, and generated a considerable amount of academic scholarship (e.g., Bullard, 1990, 1994; Liu, 2001; Mohai & Bryant, 1992; Mohai, Pellow, & Roberts, 2009; United Church of Christ, 2007; Westra & Lawson, 2001). Under the rubric of environmental justice research, a wide range of empirical case studies has examined whether environmental risk burdens are distributed equally across society and space, or if racial/ethnic minority and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to pollution and related health risks. In