Toxic waste siting disparities trace to different eras for Black versus Latino neighborhoods

Evidence

Been attributed the current inequitable distribution of toxic waste sites in African American neighborhoods to the existence of facilities sited before 1970. On the other hand, she attributed the current inequitable distribution of toxic waste sites in Latino neighborhoods to facilities that were sited after 1970. As to class disparities, Been’s study indicated that high poverty rates were “negatively correlated” with the location of toxic waste facilities. Instead, the study concluded, it was working-class and lower-middle-income neighborhoods that contained a disproportionate share of facilities. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 303

Categorization

• QUESTION: What changed around 1970 in siting practices to account for the Latino-after/Black-before split? Worth chasing the underlying siting-history literature.
• XREF: connects to: Post-siting market dynamics cannot explain current disproportionate siting patterns — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 352; National studies already show enough racial disparity in toxic siting to demand causal investigation