Environmental Justice and Land Use Planning
Analyze how land use decisions perpetuate or reduce environmental injustice.
Land use planning decisions—where to permit factories, waste facilities, highways, parks, and housing—fundamentally shape environmental justice. Historically, planners deliberately located polluting facilities in marginalized communities and excluded them from wealthy neighborhoods through zoning restrictions. Current zoning often preserves these patterns: industrial zones remain in neighborhoods where land is cheap because they're disinvested; wealthy neighborhoods maintain single-family zoning that excludes both industry and affordable housing. Progressive land use reform includes: exclusionary zoning bans (allowing diverse housing types in all neighborhoods); environmental justice overlay zones (restricting new pollution sources in overburdened areas); and community benefits agreements (ensuring development benefits existing residents). Some…
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