What is environmental racism for? Place-based harm and relational development
Abstract
This paper argues that observed environmental racisms are instrumental to the development of white places. Rather than limiting the view of environmental harms to Black communities as spatial violence enacted via white NIMBYism, we argue that such spoilage is what produces white places. We call this process ‘creative extraction,’ the taking of resources from Black places to invest in white places. Those resources range from regressive sales tax revenues to water and sewer infrastructure to land devalued through waste disposal. Creative extraction involves seemingly unconnected actors reinforcing mutual interest in white spatial control and placemaking. Drawing on our case study of Montgomery County, Texas, we show how development, infrastructure, and environmental harm are intimately linked through legal and political contestation, and resource redistribution. We focus on Texas’ mechanism for creating new water infrastructure through ‘Municipal Utility Districts’ to illustrate how apolicy can create literal and symbolic boundaries to enable overdevelopment and underdevelopment. Our proposed vantage point on the relationship between communities can improve future research on both environmental racism and ‘the city’.
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- Authors
- Seamster, L., & Purifoy, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Iowa (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Seamster, Louise
- Venue
- Environmental Sociology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-07-22
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 110-121
- ISSN
- 2325-1042 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3044967939
- Cited by
- 85
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 12.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Environmental Sociology (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
- Social Sciences › Urban Studies › Urban Planning and Governance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Extractivism and Socioeconomic Issues
- Keywords
- environmental racism, NIMBYism, municipal utility districts, water infrastructure, sales tax revenue, waste disposal, place-making, resource redistribution, racial boundaries, Montgomery County, Texas, Black communities, urban development
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