Monday, January 29, 2007

Project Proposal

Well as I said before, I would really like to do a project illustrating environmental inequities bore by minorities, lower economic class, and marginalized people in general. I hopefully would like to do an analysis showing that domestic inequities still exist in a given area[need to narrow it down] and possibly show if the Environmental Justice movement and Clinton-era politics affected the situation. The topic lends itself to debate, because there have been several studies that contradict each other because of various factors.

Statistical evidence that prove and disprove inequities have been put forth by various studies. Issues effecting statistics including temporal, size of study group, type of chemical/hazard, and health risk/damage (which are hard to prove). Even so I have found some rather horrid statistics which include:

1) 3 out of 4 of the largest hazardous waste fills sit in majority black areas
2) Penalties under hazardous waste laws are %500 higher at sites having the greatest white population compared to areas where there the majority of the population is minorites
3) There are higher rates of contamination in middle income Black/ Hispanic neighborhoods as opposed to low-income White neighborhoods.

The list continues including issues with zoning of minority neighborhoods from residential to industrial, etc.

Basically the problem I have now is to refine the scope of my research and find and area that could shed new light on the topic...

1 comment:

DJS said...

Basically the problem I have now is to refine the scope of my research and find and area that could shed new light on the topic...

Yes. Good topic though. Come talk with me as soon as you have some ideas on how to narrow and focus it