|
Abstract
|
This virtual special issue aims at better understanding and addressing how race, racism, and racial injustice in transportation interact with and affects the environment. For this purpose, we take environmental racism to be any policy, practice, or directive that disadvantages people, groups, or communities based on race or ethnicity, following Bullard (1990).
Although environmental justice has been recognized by scholars and public officials as an important element of the transportation planning process for decades, the environment of many cities and regions around the world continues to impose disproportionate benefits and burdens on people by race and ethnicity, stemming from unequal access to or unjust outcomes of decision-making in the transportation sector. Unequal provision of transportation infrastructure and services is one reason why we continue to find socioeconomic disparities by race and ethnicity, often going back to long-ago decisions with harmful consequences that remain today (Bullard, 2004). However, we must look beyond transportation infrastructure and services to the role of the built environment to better understand how transportation holds back social justice: the transportation system and other elements of the built environment, such as land-use patterns, jointly determine how people can access the opportunities provided in cities and communities. Like transportation infrastructure, the built environment is constructed by public officials, planners, and engineers whose decisions shape the lives of residents, often in ways that disadvantage some people by race or ethnicity. Two decades ago, the relationship between the environment and racism elevated an appreciation for the transportation sector's role in perpetuating inequities from various parts of the world (Bullard and Johnson, 1997, Social Exclusion Unit, 2003). Nevertheless, transportation disadvantages persist based on race or ethnicity. Given a renewed attention concerning the consequences of racism in cities and places, this special issue seeks to advance knowledge and actions to help achieve the goal of improving justice in transport...
Language: en |