February 2, 2012
Environmental Justice: Then and Now
As contemporary as notions of environmental justice might seems to us, as citizens of the twenty-first century, the reality of the unequal externalization of environmental ills far pre-dates the term itself. From a local standpoint, Los Angeles contended with major issues of inequity, specifically relating to the expansion of the oil drilling operations and the meatpacking industry into areas where their presence was pointedly unwanted.
The turn of the twentieth century and accompanying oil and industrial boom brought many political, social, and economic changes to residents in Southern California. It was around this time that politicians and policy makers started becoming aware of the environmental consequences of economic and demographic growth, which were largely negative. Beginning in the 1880s (perhaps not coincidentally, the decade in which the University of Southern California was founded), a general trend of population increase started to take effect. Los Angeles was booming for a variety of reasons although they were predominantly bound to the climate, geography, and resource wealth of the Southern California region.
From 1900 to 1910, as a consequence of the appealing Mediterranean climate, population rapidly grew from 102,479 to 319,198 people, creating a real estate driven economy. However other entrepreneurs and local interests realized that the city’s economy would also be intrinsically linked to the untapped wealth of natural resources, specifically oil and natural gas that span the continental shelf and coastal areas. At the time, this desire for rapid economic diversification and a frugal political climate inherently clashed with the local residents who had a vested interest in keeping their homes and residential areas clean and safe to live in.
Although the environmental problems associated with the diversification of the economy in Southern California were clearly evident and taking a toll on the quality of living, politicians generally favored big business and economic expansion. This was due to the “political machine” in place at the turn of the century that was dominated by corruption and greed. Politicians disregarded the welfare of their citizens in turn for personal profit and the political support of public utilities and business firms.
Though nearly the whole of downtown Los Angeles was divided into residential or commercial districts called ‘wards,’ the primary division was Main Street — affluent, middle-class inhabitants chiefly resided on the west side of Main, while blue collar workers and members of the lower-middle-class lived on the east.
Not unlike what we see in today’s political arena, a century ago, there was still a clear and emphasis on fostering economic growth — often at the expense of environmental stewardship. And public policy, which, as Daniel Johnson put it, “all too readily subordinated the interests of Los Angeles’ poorer citizens to the goals and ambitions of the wealthy and powerful,” reflected that priority.
Then, as now, political protest was often the first line of defense against perceived injustices. Political corruption at the municipal level presented a very serious roadblock to any sort of positive action, however, as many ward representatives were in the pockets of public utilities. Many city politicians were openly reliant on such companies for the financial backing and campaign staffing support to hold onto their positions of power. L.A. Gas and Electric Company enjoyed an unrivaled monopoly for many years, before being challenged by an upstart and potential alternative called Suburban Gas. Although residents of the eighth ward were very vocal in making their opposition to Suburban Gas’ plan to set up shop in their backyard, the local homeowners’ protest fell on deaf ears, for the most part, and the fire commission granted Suburban Gas the permit to begin construction. It wasn’t until residents’ opposition was “coupled with substantial political pressure from the established gas monopoly” that the city council was eventually convinced to overturn the fire commission’s original decision.
In many ways, it’s discouraging to see how little has changed in more than one hundred years. Beyond shifting the region that’s most egregiously exploited and most consistently disenfranchised a few blocks further east, all of the same problems still exist. For reasons that, while utterly lacking in humanity, nonetheless make perfect sense from an economic standpoint, industry will always have significant clout in the realm of governance and policymaking. The interests of industry are currently being put ahead of the basic needs of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, who live in disproportionately large numbers, in close proximity to the worst sorts of industrial pollution, and must endure diminished quality of life because of it.
Many — including USC’s own Manuel Pastor, who serves as Co-Director of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Justice, Tolerance & Community (CJTC) — have invested years in documenting and explaining the root causes of environmental injustices in urban areas. Professor Pastor and his colleague’s work suggest that the issue may have more to do with socioeconomic status than race, but whatever the case, it’s clear — given their century-old history in the area — that environmental justice is an issue that will require widespread attention and significant commitments to make any real headway against it.
This post was authored by Louis Lucero II ’12 an Environmental Studies major (BA) with minors in English and Screenwriting; and Scott Gross ’12 an Environmental Studies major (BA).
Funny that you should mention Manuel Pastor, as he was a guest speaker in my Sustainable Businesses class on Wednesday. We did indeed speak with him a lot about environmental INjustice – which differs from environmental justice in that injustice shows instances of inequality. This is something that I would not have realized, had Manuel not mentioned it in the beginning of his talk.
On another note, something that was very interesting that Mr. Pastor taught our class was about the concept of ground truthing. When collecting data about residential and industrial areas, Manuel and his team use ground truthing to add more validity to their data, making their study more accurate. Ground truthing is when residents of a community are involved in the data collection. The purpose of this is that the policy ideas and actions that come out of a study come directly from the community because they were involved with the data collection and interpretation.
Ground truthing not only empowers a community to see the problems that are present in their living areas, but also to take a stance about changing those problems through voicing opinions in proposed policies. I like this idea and I can see it being used in many other areas as well. It’s a great way to get a group of people enlightened and involved in an issue. I hope the idea spreads to be used more widely.
- Nina
To also tie this in to another class, I’m currently taking an ARLT101 class that focuses on Los Angeles’ history. We have talked a lot about inequality and the separation of certain areas based on economic status, race, religion, etc. Last week we actually did a reading where I woman was talking about growing up in Watts and how there was this sense of being stuck there and that no one was listening to the problems that were there. For the most part we talk about the economic and racial aspects in my class, but I feel like it ties a lot into the environmental issues discussed in these readings. Because some areas already had a bad environment, the politicians would continue letting industry spread in these areas and keep the richer areas pristine. There was definitely corruption and I think that added to the tensions that relate to race and socio-economic discrimination.
As the readings in this class discussed, people were stuck in the poorer, industrialized areas because the increase in pollution cause the values of their houses to go down. When you can’t sell a house for a decent amount of money, how do you expect to move to a better neighborhood? It seems to be a downward cycle of the conditions getting poorer and poorer and the people falling further and further down. But eventually, as was seen in the Watt riots, the popole of these areas got fed up not being listened to by the corrupted political world and fought back in the form of a riot.
In this class we just finished an interview project where we needed to go around and talk to at least 5 people of all different ages, classes, races, etc, and ask them about their impressions of the problems LA faces and what could be done to fix them. I spoke to Sister Sean Patrice at St Vincent’s School on Figueroa and she said that the way we can solve all the problems that we have seen in the past is by politicians listening to the needs of the people at the lower levels. By starting at the grassroots and working our way up, she believes we will see a more successful way of solving the problems that are still left over even from the early 1900s that we read about in these readings.
It is very unfortunate that the poor always suffer the most! And they are often the ones that don’t get to speak up. Industry and negative environmental impacts always get pushed away in a direction that hurts those less fortunate. This is true in cases such as the one talked about in this article and in many other cases, especially in developing countries. I grew up here in Los Angeles in the east side. Growing up I knew so many people who have had asthma since a young age. We don’t need tragic events to teach us that there are injustices. We can see it here in Los Angeles.
I was also present for Manuel Pastor’s talk! My takeaway from his presentation includes two points that really stress the importance of local knowledge in “ground truthing.” First, the sources of pollution may never be listed in any document on point or mobile source pollution. For example, in a community near the freeway, there is a particularly popular taco stand that many truck drivers will frequent while on the job. However, when they get out of their trucks to get the goods, they’ll leave their trucks running. Throughout the year, a number of trucks will be gathered near that one taco stand each day, thus negatively affecting local residents (most of all, the poor taco guy!). A second point which I had not considered was that those being affected may be gathered in locations not specified by any official document. For example, sometimes a random home or church may serve as an unofficial elderly care facility or daycare. Only a knowledgeable local community member would be able to identify both unofficial vulnerable and polluting sites. Official documentation should be supplemented by insightful local knowledge via measures like ground truthing if public policies are to be holistic and useful.