Unintended, inexorable - The production of environmental inequalities in Santa Clara County, California

Instead of demonstrating the existence of environmental race and class ineq ualities at one point in rime, social scientists must now do historical stu dies that explain how such inequalities are generated over time. The author s use 1990 census and 1989 Environmental Protection Agency Toxics Release I nventory data to document environmental race and class inequalities in Sant a Clara County, California. They then use earlier censuses and historical l and use data to generate a series of demographic and industrial maps spanni ng 30 years, 1960 to 1990. They also consult existing local histories, plan ning reports, and other documents to interpret the maps and describe the co unty's economic, residential, and demographic development. They find that t he environmental inequalities observed in 1990 were not the result of inten tional siting decisions. Rather; they were the result of the combination of several "normal" processes: economic boosterism, unregulated development, and racial and ethnic differences in education, occupation, and income.