Green Grass and Tall Trees Do Not Only Belong to the Wealthy!
Why is it that in America today our wealthy white neighborhoods are gifted with lucious fields of grass and beauteous trees; but our lower income colored communities do not have this fortune? A whopping number of underprivileged communities lack full trees that provide shade, but have an abundance of heat-trapping concrete. Historically, this has always been the case in the United States; there are many urban lower income communities with a majority of Black and Hispanic inhabitants that have faced the oppression of redlining from federal officials. Redlining was a 1930’s bias housing system which denied specific communities various services and goods because they were perceived as uncertain investments. Consequently, the effects of racial discriminatory practices; such as redlining, are still alive according to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
Redlining is much more of a systematic race problem, it is an environmental race issue as well. Cities all across the nation face these repercussions each summer as their sidewalks are scorching hot; as mentioned previously. A study conducted by Jeremy S. Hoffman, Vivek Shandas, and Nicholas Pendleton on the effects of historical racial housing is depicted in their article, “The Effect of Historical Housing Policies on Resident Exposure to Insta-Urban Heat: A Study of 108 US Urban Areas.” In their article, research suggests that communities in formerly redlined communities face hotter temperatures up to 13 degrees than wealthier neighborhoods. This racial housing system is to blame for the scarcity of trees and parks that would help aid in decreasing these fiery temperatures. Not to mention, that the infrastructure in these redlined neighborhoods are drowning in asphalt and highways; which serve the purpose of trapping in heat.
How bad can a hotter summer be in a lower income community? Without the use of valumputious trees or country club pools to help you cool off, or AC units, what would you do to survive the heat? The answer is simple, you have to suffer. Suffering is exactly what people in lower income communities do in the summer, as there is not an environment to escape the heat. Research has shown that heat is one of the leading causes of death in the United States than any other weather-related disaster according to Drew Shindell, Yuqiang Zhang, Melissa Scott, and Muye Ru’s article, “The Effects of Heat Exposure on Human Mortality Throughout the United States.” Thus, the bias system redlining provided has now turned into a health crisis within these communities that needs motivation to be solved.
During former President Donald Trump’s presidency, he as well as the company of Secretary of Housing Ben Carson cancelled the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH). The AFFH worked towards ending discrimmination within housing and the disparities within communities. Without policies as such, it eliminates the motivation to help communities who face the boiling temperature crisis due to redlining. The restoration of the AFFH is a starting point to end this environmental heat disparity redlining has cursed communities with. Further, in order to work towards solving this environmental race challenge, we must hold policy makers and federal officials accountable for the negative effects they have the power of implementing on communities of color. We must be conscientious of the strength our votes have on who is going to be calling the shots on this redlining virus. Inequalities in education, income, and health also need to be pushed harder to be mended, as it would make a difference in the dangers of climate change. Climate change threatens these communities in the redlining zone as it can create even hotter temperatures. Although, if these communities gain the restoration they need to be sustained by planting the trees it needs, it also fabricates the threat of gentrification.
Federal officials who have the capability of dismantling the threat of gentrification must be driven to allow for an increase in affordable housing. This would benefit the primary residents as the threat of being kicked out of their communities will be lessened in a greener environment.
Cities; such as Denver, have already begun this process as they recently passed a new sales tax to fund parks and tree-planting in neighborhoods where redlining has occurred. Federal officials in Houston, Texas have also recently passed an ordinance to place disadvantaged neighborhoods for flood protection higher up on a list of priorities. It is hopeful that cities have recognized and are starting to recognize their historically racist systems that have caused far greater challenges for lower income communities. However, this is only the start.
So, perhaps we may think twice the next time we are sitting under a tree provided by our neighborhood parks. Perhaps we may then be motivated to help ease the literal fires that will spark this summer of 2021 in these colored communities. We need to end the effects of the redline virus, and provide cooling relief, or more lives will continue to be lost. It is crucial as it is now not only a systematic race or an environmental race problem, it is much greater…it is a health crisis.
