The Locality of Waste Sites Within the City of Chicago: A Demographic, Social, and Economic Analysis

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Abstract
"The Locality of Waste Sites in the City of Chicago: A Demographic, Social, and Economic Analysis" is a study designed to explore the factors that explain the location of a wide class of environmental wastes in a large American city. This report expands on the 1994 study "Environmental Racism in the City of Chicago: The History of EPA Hazardous Waste Sites in African American Neighborhoods" (1994). The previous study investigated the existence or absence of environmental racism in Chicago; it examined the location of a random sample of the CERCLA ("Superfund," National Priority, or potential Superfund) hazardous waste sites - most of which are the legacy of heavy industry. The study found no correlation between the location of hazardous waste sites and greater numbers of African Americans, in other words, race played an unimportant role in explaining the geographical history of CERCLA sites. The present study improves upon "Environmental Racism in the City of Chicago" in several important ways. "The Locality of Waste Sites in the City of Chicago" examines the location of three types of environmental hazards: all the CERCLIS sites in the city as well as the RCRA TSDF sites. RCRA hazardous waste generators, and historical hazardous waste sites. These three categories of sites are examined in relation to racial, ethnic, and income variables, as well as access to transportation and waste disposal infrastructure. Different types of regression analysis are used to investigate what demographic and physical features predict: the location of sites within limited communities, the location of sites within larger neighborhoods, and the concentration of sites. These analyses are performed for both 1990 and 1960 to provide a better understanding of the history of waste site locations. These improvements dramatically enhance the depth, breadth, and power of the previous analysis. Analysis of the location and concentration of waste
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