Market-dynamics explanations for siting disparities lack conclusive empirical support

Evidence

Market dynamics adherents ask the question “Which came first, the environmental hazard or the racial/class makeup of the neighborhood?” The suspicion underlying this question is that researchers have failed to compare the demographics of the neighborhoods at the time the facilities were sited and at the time measured by the study. This failure “leaves open the possibility that [the facilities] were not disparately sited in poor and minority neighborhoods” but that the “dynamics of the housing and job markets” led people of color and the poor to “come to the nuisance”—for example, to move to areas that surround waste facilities because those neighborhoods offered the cheapest available housing. … Again, the explanation is volitional: people, as rational economic actors, are choosing to live in neighborhoods that host dangerous facilities. There is inconclusive empirical support to date for the “market dynamics” explanation for racial or economic disparities in the distribution of hazardous waste facilities. Nevertheless, the market dynamics explanation is continually invoked to account for the racial disparities in environmental hazard distribution, as an alternative to the assumption that racially biased practices account for the disparities. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 314

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Market-dynamics siting outcomes remain racist once housing discrimination is factored in — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 336; Post-siting market dynamics cannot explain current disproportionate siting patterns — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 352

Broader Connections

• Post-siting market dynamics cannot explain current disproportionate siting patterns #corroborates (1.00) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 352