As 2011 comes to an end, and my rotation as lead editor comes to a close, I reflect on the progress and changes made at the journal in terms of publications, as well as the management structure. The editorial office of the journal has been effective at implementing a two-year round of changes to both the management and the visual look for the journal, with the assistance of Cambridge University Press and the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP). In the March 2011 issue, we introduced the new cover designed by Cambridge University Press, as well as a new table of contents with a diverse selection of manuscript categories for our authors. We have an active editorial board of 15 members who represent a healthy mixture of scholars and practitioners from across the United States. These folks have all reviewed or written manuscripts on an annual basis for the journal. We hope to expand the editorial board to include more international representation over the next couple of years.

The environmental justice movement has grown phenomenally since the 1980s. Though the movement is rooted in activism, research, and scholarship occurring in the United States (US), in recent decades it has emerged as both a global movement and field of research. The broader environmental movement and environmental research in general have benefited tremendously by the emergence of environmental justice scholarship. This is the case because the new area of inquiry has contributed greatly to our understanding of the relationship between social inequality and the environment. It has also provided mechanisms for people who traditionally did not participate in environmental affairs to become actively engaged in them.

I don't know about you, but to me the world in which we live appears to be faster and more full of information than in years past. The pace of information being provided to us is increased by modern conveniences like television and the Internet. While it is amazing the speed with which we can receive information, I am concerned that the information is not getting processed properly. In some cases, I am convinced that the information provided is faulty.

This article argues that there is a long history of environmental racism in American society. The first part of the article briefly discusses some of the environmental practices that discriminated against and negatively impacted people of color. It also discusses the responses of people color to these inequities. The second part of the article examines the rise of the contemporary environmental justice movement. This portion of the essay also looks at the evolution of environmental justice scholarship. It argues that despite controversy over the assertion that race and class are related to the siting patterns of hazardous facilities, most studies support the claim.

Environmental Practice 13:280–301 (2011)

We compare the environmental voting behavior of Hispanic congressional members with those of White and African American members, seek to explain disparities in long-term voting trends, and discuss the implications for future environmental policy development. We analyzed congressional members' voting behavior from 1995 to 2006. Multivariate regression models were employed to determine what factors explain racial disparities in voting. Hispanic members were more likely than White, but less likely than African American, to vote proenvironmentally throughout the period. Results show political party increasingly explains this difference. This is because Democrats and Republicans have become increasingly polarized around environmental issues while at the same time racial disparities in party membership in Congress, largely due to increasing Hispanic membership, have also widened. Although oil-and-gas PAC contributions, region, and other variables are also significant predictors of proenvironmental voting, these variables are secondary to party. Our results add to the building evidence that racial/ethnic minorities are as supportive, if not more supportive, of environmental protection policies as their White counterparts. There has been little research on environmental voting behaviors of Hispanic congressional members. Although the number of Hispanic representatives has to date been relatively small (N = 24 in the 109th Congress), our results lend insight into the changing demographics of the Congress and how this may affect American environmental policy development in the future.

Environmental Practice 13:302–313 (2011)

This article highlights the need to integrate environmental justice (EJ) education into environmental science programs offered in Ghanaian universities. The study was conducted at the University of Cape Coast, which is close to the oil-drilling region in western Ghana. Predominant instances of environmental injustice often accompany oil drilling and extraction of natural resources. Three issues are addressed: students' perceptions of EJ, their attitudes toward studying EJ, and perceived barriers to the practical application of EJ. The history and important concepts of the EJ movement are reviewed for the purpose of educating students. The World Values Survey for determining Ghanaians' perceptions and attitudes toward various environmental issues is also reviewed. Qualitative research design was used. A questionnaire was developed based on the themes of EJ from the review and administered to 75 students. Students showed a satisfactory level of EJ perception and assessed barriers to practicing EJ. Implications for EJ education are covered.

Environmental Practice 13:314–324 (2011)

Racialized space has been used to explain the emergence of environmental racism and injustice. Central to this hypothesis is the history of uneven development in cities, coupled with persistent racial residential segregation. Beginning in the late 1930s, the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) surveyed over 200 midsized American cities to create comprehensive records of mortgage risk, commonly referred to as redlining maps. Many scholars acknowledge their significance in shaping early home and urban development policy. However, there has been relatively little work done using these maps, primarily because of their limited access. This article presents a methodology for an efficient digitization of redlining maps and provides an overview of variables within the HOLC risk map survey, called Security Area Descriptions. Work is based on a pilot study of seven central New York cities: Binghamton, Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Elmira, Rome, and Buffalo. Key steps include the overlay and georeferencing of high-resolution copies of the original HOLC maps by using contemporary street maps, and the construction of a comprehensive database by using information derived from the Security Area Descriptions. Here we present this methodology and our initial findings in the relationship between race, socioeconomic status, and marginalized space. This research contributes to the literature on historical geography and urban development.

Environmental Practice 13:325–339 (2011)

Although many environmental justice studies have examined disproportionate environmental burdens imposed on impoverished and minority neighborhoods, locational disparities of brownfields in terms of racial and socioeconomic factors have been underexplored. This study is assessed current racial and socioeconomic disparities at brownfield locations in the Detroit region, and we discuss why racial and socioeconomic disparities of brownfield locations exist. This study combines the locations of brownfields provided by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality with 2000 United States census data and the census block group as the unit of analysis. Results indicate that brownfields are disproportionately located in impoverished and minority neighborhoods. In addition, race is independently associated with brownfield locations. Connections among deindustrialization, concentration of poverty, and residential segregation can offer an explanation of why locational disparities of brownfields exist. Future studies should examine why racial and socioeconomic disparities exist at brownfield locations.

Environmental Practice 13:340–353 (2011)

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), one of the most highly visited national parks in the United States, is an important cultural symbol in the San Francisco Bay Area. Traditionally absent groups are expressing a desire to enjoy the benefits associated with outdoor recreation including public lands that may be lesser known to them. Understanding how national parks are used by ethnic minorities is of increasing importance to both the public and the National Park Service. In 2006, the GGNRA commissioned a focus-group study with nearly 100 people of color living in the Bay Area to provide indicators of constraints to park use. While identifying physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of access to nature in parks, many participants expressed frustration with limited physical access, subtle racism, and general exclusion from the culture of parks as reasons why they avoid these public spaces. The results of this study corroborate over four decades of research on park constraints. This article presents results of narratives provided by those who experience constraints and their desire to participate. For national parks to become representative of the people they serve, we suggest the need to mitigate silent exclusion and move toward proactive inclusion both inside and outside the parks. Key considerations include outreach through more intentional communication strategies, multilingual signage, responding to complaints of discrimination, and more representative hiring practices.

Environmental Practice 13:354–369 (2011)

Despite the plethora of studies about environmental organizations, few studies have examined the work experiences of employees. Consequently, this study analyzes the job mobility and earnings of 265 environmental professionals. The survey sample consisted of 153 White and 112 minority respondents, including 150 men and 115 women. The study examines three dependent variables: job tenure, starting salaries, and current salaries. It analyzes how the independent variables race, gender, educational attainment, disciplinary background, type of college attended, length of time working in current organization, length of time working in the environmental field, and type of environmental organization worked in are related to the outcome variables. The study found that the perception of wage inequity was stronger among minorities than Whites. However, binary logistic regression analysis found that neither race nor gender were significant in predicting job tenure, starting, or current salary in multivariate models.

Environmental Practice 13:370–385 (2011)

While much of the environmental justice literature has focused on exposure to environmental contaminants, this article argues that access to environmental goods should be explored, as well. We do this by looking at the rates paid for drinking and wastewater infrastructure in the United States (US). Although US residents, in aggregate, pay very little for water and sewer (around 1% of household income), the rate varies significantly by place (with Chicago residents paying roughly one fourth of the rates of residents in Atlanta, for instance). We ask whether particular groups may disproportionately pay higher rates. Using census data, we compare the cost of water and sewer across counties in Michigan and find tremendous disparity in reported expenditure. We then use multivariate regression analysis to investigate the relationship among income, urbanicity, race, and cost of water and sewer. Our findings indicate that a higher reported cost of water and sewer is associated most strongly with minority racial status. This results from postindustrial divestment and subsequent depopulation of particular urban areas. As a result, decreased demand (fewer households remaining in the city) actually increases prices (per remaining household), since water infrastructure costs are fixed, and this phenomenon disproportionately disadvantages people of color—who make up the majority of the great industrial cities.

Environmental Practice 13:386–395 (2011)

This article analyzes how Stop the Power (STP), an environmental justice social movement organization based in Brockton, Massachusetts, has confronted a well-resourced corporate opponent and a challenging state regulatory process. Drawing on semistructured interviews with key activists, organization-generated documents such as flyers, petitions, videos, and webpages, and articles from local newspapers, we argue that, rather than jump scale, STP has instead engaged in scale focusing. Scale focusing is conceptualized as the process of a movement organization intentionally localizing and particularizing its strategies. STP does scale focusing in three ways: critiquing the local built environment, articulating a geographically bounded collective identity, and deploying community-based strategies such as information dissemination and participating in local electoral politics. Since scale focusing represents a generative contribution to the social movements literature, we conclude by considering the broader implications of this concept.

Environmental Practice 13:396–405 (2011)

This article analyzes community building and political agency through an investigation of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN). By using farming as a strategy of resistance against the structural factors that have left much of Detroit in a condition of food insecurity, DBCFSN not only meets citizens' needs for fresh produce, but also builds community by transforming the social, economic, and physical environment. In so doing, it creates new community spaces on vacant land. DBCFSN uses the farm (a) as a community center, (b) as a means to articulate culturally relevant language about healthy food and healthy lifestyles, and (c) as a tangible model of collective work, self-reliance, and political agency. These farmers adopt a community-based model for increasing access to healthy food for the mostly African American citizens of Detroit. By focusing on improving the daily existence of citizens rather than mobilizing against the power structures, D-Town, a seven-acre model urban farm project of DBCFSN, activists participate in the revival of a city mired in racism and poverty, and all but abandoned by politicians, the automobile industry, and the merchants and supermarkets who once served Detroit's residents.

Environmental Practice 13:406–417 (2011)