Spatial Perceptions of Environmental Racism: Bellingham by the Data

This quarter, graduate students enrolled in ENVS 597: Power, Privilege, and the Environment are writing short responses emerging from readings and/or discussions in class.

 

Spatial Perceptions of Environmental Racism: Bellingham by the Data

By: Andy Basabe

 

“Geographic studies of environmental racism have focused on the spatial relationships between environmental hazards and community demographics in order to determine if inequity exists.  Conspicuously absent within this literature, however, is any substantive discussion of racism” (Pulido 2012).

 

Bellingham, Washington is a rapidly changing city in the Pacific Northwest. Under the influence of real estate outcomes of neighboring Seattle, home ownership opportunity and neighborhood identities are in flux. Old buildings are torn down to make space for new, dense, expensive, apartment buildings for college students — who are primarily white.  On another side of town, grocery stores are closing due to lack of profit, resulting in food deserts for a more poor, more diverse neighborhood.

 

In line with Pulido’s article, “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California”, I am going to discuss how white privilege is shaping neighborhood patterns in Bellingham. Much of this information is based on my personal and professional experience of over 30 years of living here, and is augmented by information from the Washington State Environmental Justice Mapping tool.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above image is of the neighborhoods of Bellingham, and each neighborhood’s social vulnerability to hazards.  There is no layer expressing race in the tool, meaning this tool is blind to race. Of note is that this is one of, if not the, best tool available to the public for looking at environmental justice.  

 

In looking at the neighborhoods with the highest vulnerability to hazards, Bellingham is mostly 9-10, with some 7 and then large swaths of 3.  The 10 area in the middle of the map is where much of Bellingham’s college students and many low income/subsidized housing residents live. The college students are primarily white, and many receive financial aid or parental support that allows them to live beyond the means reported in their tax returns.  The neighborhood with the college students is the same where old buildings with cheap rents are being torn down and replaced by apartments. The 10 on the west side of the map is the Lummi Reservation, one of the poorest areas in Whatcom County.

 

The blue areas are affluent residential areas.  The areas scoring 9 adjacent to downtown are also college residents and apartments.  The area to the NW of downtown scoring a 9 is the Birchwood Neighborhood, home to more people of color and English Language Learner families.    This is the neighborhood where there is no large grocery store.

 

In the larger picture, Bellingham is gentrifying in areas with cheap real estate occupied by white people.  The diverse parts of town are not being developed at all, example being no grocery store, and rent is cheap.  Like Pulido’s article states, white privilege, in this case generational wealth of white college students, is creating racial divides in neighborhoods.  

 

The environmental justice lens, in this case the mapping tool provided by the state of Washington, does not express any racial issues.  Looking at this information with the anecdotal experience of a resident, it is clear that environmental justice is doing nothing to stop racist development of Bellingham.  If development is located in areas that benefit whites, and not located in areas that would benefit Bellingham’s communities of color, is that racist? Is white privilege racist?

   

 

Pulido, L. (2000). Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90(1), 12–40. Retrieved from JSTOR.