ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the distribution of technological hazards in the Phoenix metropolitan area, focusing on race and class inequalities in facility locations and the issue of environmental justice. To examine potential environmental justice concerns, the readers address two questions in what follows. The study area captures an expanding zone of hazardous land uses: from the original core in South Phoenix, it has extended with post-WWII industrial development east into Sky Harbor airport and west into older suburban areas. In metropolitan Phoenix, 1% of residentially zoned areas directly border industrial zoning, in contrast to the 35% of neighborhoods in the study area which do so. The presence of the minority population in South Phoenix was considered an investment “hazard,” leading to bank redlining, perpetuating economic underdevelopment, and inadequate housing in Black and Latino neighborhoods. As Harvey notes, in cities today, "concerns for environmental justice, are kept strictly subservient to concerns for economic efficiency, continuous growth, and capital accumulation".
