Manufacturing Decline and Environmental Inequality: Metropolitan Disparities in Industrial Air Pollution in the United States

Kevin Smiley

Disparities across metropolitan areas in chemical emissions are extensive, and not well understood. To better investigate these inter-urban inequalities, I showcase how the changing manufacturing economy relates to the production of industrial pollution. Using data on health risks from industrial air pollution in 1990, 2000, and 2010. I test to see if an indicator of change in the number of manufacturing workers in a metropolitan area from 1970 to each of the three study years is associated with greater health risks. Although a greater proportion of the population in manufacturing work in a given year is strongly linked to more toxic air in a metropolitan area, the evidence also shows that metropolitan areas that have experience a manufacturing decline since 1970 are especially associated with more toxic air. Implications focus on how the indelible imprint of manufacturing history may condition contemporary pollution levels.

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 Presented in Session 3. Population, Development, & the Environment; Data & Methods; Applied Demography