Historical red-lining is associated with fossil fuel power plant siting and present-day inequalities in air pollutant emissions

Lara J. Cushing (), Shiwen Li, Benjamin B. Steiger and Joan A. Casey
Additional contact information
Lara J. Cushing: University of California Los Angeles
Shiwen Li: University of California Los Angeles
Benjamin B. Steiger: Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Joan A. Casey: Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

Nature Energy, 2023, vol. 8, issue 1, 52-61

Abstract: Abstract Stationary sources of air pollution are disproportionately located in communities of colour, but the causes for this disparity are unclear. Here we assess whether racialized appraisals of investment risk (‘red-lining’) undertaken by the US federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in the 1930s influenced the subsequent siting of fossil fuel power plants. Across 8,871 neighbourhoods in 196 US urban areas, we observed a stepwise correlation between risk grade, number of power plants and cumulative quantity of power plant emissions upwind and within 5 km. Controlling for pre-existing power plants, neighbourhoods deemed ‘hazardous’ (D grade, ‘red-lined’) had a higher likelihood of a fossil fuel power plant being sited between 1940 and 1969 (72%), 1970 and 1999 (20%) and 2000 and 2019 (31%), and higher average present-day emissions of nitrous oxides (82%), sulfur dioxide (38%) and fine particulate matter (63%) compared with ‘declining’ (C-graded) neighbourhoods. Our results suggest racism in the housing market contributed to inequalities in present-day power plant emissions burdens.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01162-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:8:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41560-022-01162-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-022-01162-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().