North Carolina [Un]incorporated: Place, Race, and Local Environmental Inequity
Abstract
Research linking municipal underbounding to racialized environmental inequality suggests that understanding the built environmental outcomes of municipal annexation or incorporation may add an important dimension to scholarship on environmental justice and critical race theory. This article explores whether white, black, and Latinx populations are likely to receive the same built environmental benefits from municipal incorporation. I study the distribution and proximity of built amenities and disamenities across white, black, and Latinx populations in incorporated municipalities and unincorporated communities in North Carolina—a state with ongoing controversies about who benefits from municipal jurisdiction. To the extent that municipalities are associated with built environmental amenities, I find that block groups with high white populations are the primary beneficiaries. By contrast, environmental disamenities are distributed disproportionately in communities with higher black and Latinx populations regardless of municipal incorporation. These findings suggest that histories of racialized municipal exclusion are an additional layer of already overdetermined environmental racism, such that municipal inclusion—primarily through annexation of excluded black and Latinx populations—may do little to alter the existing inequities.
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When lack of regulation is combined with ditches' capacity to carry harmful pollutants and pathogens, whose load is typically elevated, often deliberately concentrated, in areas of high poverty, artificial channels become hotspots for environmental injustice and exploitation.
“When this lack of regulation is combined with their capacity to carry harmful pollutants and pathogens, whose load is typically elevated, often deliberately concentrated, in areas of high poverty 90 , then artificial channels become hotspots for environmental injustice and exploitation 13,91,92 .”
From Lines in the landscape (2025) · cites this paper as [91]
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- Authors
- Purifoy, D. M.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Purifoy, Danielle M.
- ORCID
- Purifoy, Danielle M.
- Venue
- American Behavioral Scientist
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-07-17
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1072-1103
- ISSN
- 0002-7642 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3381
- OpenAlex
- W4237398029
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 6.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Behavioral Scientist (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- u.s. environmental protection agency
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
- Social Sciences › Urban Studies › Urban Planning and Governance
- Keywords
- municipal incorporation, municipal annexation, environmental justice, environmental racism, racial disparities, environmental disamenities, unincorporated communities, critical race theory, racial exclusion, North Carolina
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