By: Yolanda Anita Sanchez
Environmental
Justice combines the unequal placement of hazardous waste sites and the
enforcement of environmental laws and other safety standards.
Usually
ethnic/minority and poor communities make easy targets for environmental risk,
because they lack social power. Social power includes political and educational
skills along with financial resources. Without social power, communities can do
little to fight environmental risks within their community. In the “’Polluting
the Body Politic’: Race and Urban Location chapter of Racist Culture,
David Goldberg argues that urban structure in its “definition, maintenance,
distribution, experience, reproduction, and transformation – are at once
fundamental influence upon the social relations of power.” On the other hand,
the Environmental Justice movement educates residents, while moving the
community in a progressive motion toward environmental equity. Moreover,
Environmental Justice promotes community empowerment, while demanding government
accountability.
South Phoenix is
an example of a community that for many years lacked the social power needed to
combat the overburden of environmental risks in their
neighborhoods.
However, in 1992 the Quality Printing Circuit fire triggered the community to
start fighting back. According to Steve Brittle of ‘Don’t Waste Arizona’ the
neighborhood pets were dying during the weeks after the fire, there was an
increase in illnesses and the mortality rate in the neighborhood of the fire.
The neighbors organized and started the
Concerned Residents of South Phoenix (CRSP)
group. The disproportionately poor environmental conditions of their
neighborhoods enrage members of CRSP, and the daily constant exposures to
hazardous waste concern them. In the 10 years since the fire, the group has
begun to fight back. But, the changes in the local community may impede the
process.
Goldberg
describes gentrification as a ‘structural phenomenon.’ Goldberg proclaims “It
involves tax-assisted displacement of longtime inner city resident poor,
renovation of the vacated residential space, upscaling the neighborhood, and
resettling the area with inhabitants of higher socioeconomic status.” Basically
the process tears apart the community by relocating the ‘old’ residents.
Gentrification
threatens the Environmental Justice movement by rupturing communities that have
finally become empowered. The South Phoenix residents have just begun to work
as a cohesive group, take action against polluters, and hold their government
accountable. They have learned which neighbors to count on, which
representatives to call, and which planning committee to meet with. Displacing
the residents will eradicate all of the contacts and all of the cooperation.
Thus, it will eradicate all of the hope.
Upscaling
the community with new houses and new residents, may be followed by a removal of
environmental risks. A combination of rising property taxes, protesting
residents (that move-in with social power), and changes in city planning (such
as Rio Salado’s Beyond the Banks plans) may result in environmental polluting
companies leaving and polluted land being cleaned. However, the new clean
environment will be for the new residents. Moreover, Phoenix will not stop
industrialism, and they will need an environment to pollute.
Chances are the polluters will follow the old displaced residents. Once again,
the residents will move into an area that will be underinvested and
underserved. Yet, this time the residents will be less sanctioned to fight
back. Their allies gone; their representatives alien; and their hope expended.
Gentrification of South Phoenix will rip apart the once organized community,
thus kill the Environmental Justice movement in the area. Overall, the
Environmental Justice Movement in South Phoenix will be a ghost of the
gentrification past.
See more about Environmental Justice in
Arizona
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Environmental Justice in South Phoenix
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