Redlining and Hazards in the City of Los Angeles

American Community Survey has a wealth of data that is broken down into census blocks. This data includes demographic and socioeconomic data.

CalEnviroScreen (CES) various information on the entire state of California. I used the data from CES 4.0 and clipped it to the area of interest (Los Angeles).

Data from the County of Los Angeles Open Data Portal was used to create the boundary of the city to perform various spatial joins and clips of data that goes beyond the city limits. The city boundary was also used to perform spatial analysis to determine the number of hazardous sites within the city.

The EPA maintains a list of facilities that have toxic releases and that data was used to show areas in the city that had these types of facilities.

The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) created a grading system for residential communities based on desirability. Part of the grading parameters included race. Communities with large minority groups were consistently rated "D" (Hazardous) and the highest any of at best were rated "C" (In Decline).

Communities that were "redlined" were denied mortgages regardless of qualifications or creditworthiness of the resident applying.

In addition, there were restrictive covenants in place that prevented minorities from purchasing homes in certain areas.

The zoomed in neighborhood was given a "D" ranking and the picture below contains the are description by HOLC used to determine the ranking.

Here is a quick primer on redlining.

In the 1930s cities were rated and coded by their desirability to live in. These ratings were done using a letter score.

Today you can still see some of the impacts of redlining. Neighborhoods that were redlined still have low incomes and high numbers of people below the poverty level as shown here by the American Community Survey.

For many homeowners the vestiges of the past still remain even in the titles for their property you can still see the restrictive covenants that were written.

The neighborhoods affected by redlining are still behind when it comes to socioeconomic status. The median income throughout the City of Los Angeles is $67,000.

For comunities that were redlined the median income is about $50,000

Hazardous waste sites as defined by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the US Environmental Protection can be liquids, solids, or contained gases.

Things like manufacturing by-products, cleaning fluids, and pesticides can all count as hazardous waste. Hexavalent chromium is a by-product of chrome plating and is also considered a hazardous waste.

According to McGlinn (2000) in 1995 97% of releases that were toxic were from small facilities or generators. These types of facilities are common throughout Los Angeles and in the formerly redlined areas.

There has been research that found that living near these types off facilities can have health impacts like diabetes and cardiovasuclar disease (Kouznetsova et al., 2007; Sergeev and Carpenter, 2005)..

The EPA maintains a list of facilities that emit toxic releases into the environment. This list is called the “Toxic Release Inventory” (TRI). According to a study done by the EPA in 2010 California had the highest risk score of any state in the United States. Modelling studies were done to hlep inform the EPA study which gauged the toxic emissions with a risk score, composition of emissions, and the population exposure potential.

Certain communities in close proximity to TRI are at risk from accidental chemical releases. Self-reporting accidents regarding chemical releases were tracked for five years and 7.8% had at least one release and 2.3% reported multiple accidents. These events led to 1,987 employee injuries, 32 deaths among workers, and 167 injuries in nonemployees. During the course of the study over 200,000 residents in nearby communities were made to either shelter-in-place or evacuate their homes. Studies have been performed to analyze the potential negative health impacts of living close to TRI facilities. There is an increased risk for children to develop brain cancer if they live within a mile of a TRI that emits carcinogens (Choi et al., 2006). Texas performed a study on maternal community members who were exposed to certain TRI chemicals had low birth weights when they gave birth to their children. Higher mortailty rates among infants that live near TRI facilities has also been found. Low-income and disadvantaged neighborhoods have been found to suffer greater emissions of toxic chemicals. Southern California studies have found that people of color were more likely to live in areas with toxic releases (Morello-Frosch et al., 2002; Sadd et al., 1999).

Cleanup sites create many risks for close neighborhoods. Volatization, groundwater, and wind all present ways for hazardous substances to leave these cleanup sites and effect those who live nearby. In fact, pesticides have been found in blood and toxic metals have been found in household dust in areas that are near these cleanupsites. Low birthweights and even liver disease have been associated with living near these sites. There has also been research done to show that census tracts with these types of sites have larger proportions of African Americans, Latinos and folks that work blue-collar jobs (Kearney and Kiros, 2009).

It generally takes many years for a site to be certified as clean, and cleanup work is often delayed due to cost, litigation, concerns about liability, or detection of previously unrecognized contaminants. - CalEnviroScreen 4.0 Report