493285
ASRXXX10.1177/0003122413493285American Sociological ReviewElliott and Frickel
2013
The Historical Nature of
Cities: A Study of Urbanization
and Hazardous Waste
Accumulation
American Sociological Review
78(4) 521­–543
© American Sociological
Association 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0003122413493285
http://asr.sagepub.com
James R. Elliotta and Scott Frickelb
Abstract
Endemic uncertainties surrounding urban industrial waste raise important theoretical and
methodological challenges for understanding the historical nature of cities. Our study
advances a synthetic framework for engaging these challenges by extending theories of modern
risk society and classic urban ecology to investigate the accumulation of industrial hazards
over time and space. Data for our study come from a unique longitudinal dataset containing
geospatial and organizational information on more than 2,800 hazardous manufacturing sites
operating between 1956 and 2006 in Portland, Oregon. We pair these site data with historical
data from the U.S. population census and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
(DEQ) to examine the historical accumulation of hazardous parcels in relation to changing
patterns of industrial land use, neighborhood composition, new residential development, and
environmental regulation. Results indicate that historical accumulation of hazardous sites
is scaling up in ways that exhibit little regard for shifting neighborhood demographics or
existing regulatory policies as sites merge into larger, more contiguous industrialized areas of
historically generated hazards, creating the environmental conditions of urban risk society.
Keywords
environment, industrial hazards, risk, urbanization
U.S. manufacturers report depositing more
than 3 billion pounds of hazardous waste into
onsite lands every year; this figure includes
only voluntary reporting from larger establishments operating in nonexempted subsectors
and thus vastly understates the scope and
complexity of the problem (U.S. EPA 2010).
The environmental legacies of these industrial
practices are particularly acute in older urban
centers where, over the past century, manufacturing facilities that produce and release such
wastes have left behind untold risks for contemporary residents and vexing problems for
policymakers and urban planners.
Endemic uncertainties associated with
these historic industrial hazards raise important theoretical and methodological challenges
for environmental social science, and as Harvey (1996:429) asserts, “we have as yet only
scraped the surface.” One reason for the slow
progress is that most research in this area continues to say little about how industrial hazards are generated and distributed through
ongoing and largely endogenous processes of
socio-ecological transformation (e.g., Braun
2005; Cronon 1991; Heynen, Kaika, and
Swyngedouw 2006). Addressing this and
a
University of Oregon
Washington State University
b
Corresponding Author:
James Elliott, Department of Sociology,
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1291
E-mail: [email protected]
522
related questions requires synthesizing urban
studies’ attention to the historically recursive
development of cities with environmental
studies’ attention to hazards that these processes produce and leave behind.
The present article offers such a synthesis.
We borrow and extend ideas from industrial
ecology, environmental history, and geography,
as well as sociological research on urbanization, risk, and environmental inequality to
examine how hazardous industrial sites accumulate in cities. Conceptually, our framework
begins with Beck’s (1992, 2009) theory of
modern risk society. We reformulate Beck’s
theory to pay greater analytic attention to
industrial hazards, the actual sources of threat.
We then turn to classic urban ecology’s concepts of invasion and succession to make
theoretical sense of urbanization as a process
of recursive socio-ecological transformation.
Methodologically, we introduce a strategy for
data collection and analysis that identifies a
central mechanism of this transformation—
industrial churning—and how it concentrates
and diffuses hazardous industrial waste over
time and space.
To demonstrate this framework and methodology, we provide a historical analysis of
Portland, Oregon, widely considered the most
environmentally green city in the United
States (Huber and Currie 2007). The centerpiece of this investigation is a unique longitudinal
dataset
containing
geospatial
information on more than 2,800 hazardous
manufacturing sites in operation between
1956 and 2006. We pair these data with historical data from the U.S. population census
and the Oregon Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) to examine the historical
accumulation of hazardous sites relative to
changes in local industrial land use, neighborhood composition, residential development,
and environmental regulation. Results indicate that historical accumulation of hazardous
sites is substantial and occurs in ways that
exhibit little regard for changing neighborhood composition and regulatory policies.
These findings provide a basis for improving
socio-ecological understanding of urbanization and linking it with sociological research
American Sociological Review 78(4)
on the making of modern risk society and its
attendant urban dangers.
THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM
OF URBAN HAZARDOUS
WASTE
Industrial transformation of natural resources
creates vast quantities of waste as well as
wealth, particularly in cities. Elites in government and business have long framed these
negative externalities as an inevitable price of
material progress (Hays 1987), and in the
process they have promoted an asymmetrical
relationship between industries that produce
hazardous wastes and urban residents who
bear the environmental burdens. Over time,
this unequal relationship has coalesced around
an implicit urban-waste compact based on
three basic principles.
The first principle, evident since the late
1800s, is that municipal governments will
assume primary responsibility for solid waste
streams produced by local populations and
related services, and industries will assume primary responsibility for hazardous waste streams
they create through local production processes
(Tarr 1996). This tacit agreement has given
manufacturers significant control over decisions
concerning how to treat and dispose of their
discharges, including “a new spectrum of wastes
whose quantities, toxicity, and [ecological] persistence took quantum leaps” after the 1930s
(Colten and Skinner 1996:5). Still largely in
effect, this historical arrangement dovetails with
another long-standing principle—geographic
isolation—that aims to separate residents from
hazardous industrial wastes.
Early on, this “out of sight, out of mind”
solution to the accumulation of industrially
produced hazards encouraged urban manufacturers to flush untold volumes of hazardous
waste into local waterways, a practice supported by public perception that such wastes
acted as bactericides that cleansed local waters
of putrefying organic wastes from stockyards,
slaughterhouses, and sewers (Hays 1987:76).
Yet, as the volume, diversity, and toxicity of
industrial wastes increased over time, public
Elliott and Frickel
concern about these practices also increased.
By the 1950s, government regulators began to
monitor and restrict release of industrial effluents into the air and water. In response, urban
manufacturers began dumping more of their
hazardous wastes onsite. This approach minimized growing legal liabilities associated with
widespread public exposure to such hazards,
safeguarded trade secrets by keeping information about new substances away from competitors, and reduced costs associated with
more expensive off-site waste transit, treatment, and disposal (Colten and Skinner 1996).
Indeed, a federal study found that between1950
and 1979 chemical manufacturers used landbased disposal methods for 94 percent of the
waste they generated, dumping 80 percent of
it at their own production facilities (U.S. Congress 1979; see also Dietrich 1981; Page
1997). Common methods for such onsite disposal include burying wastes in metal or fiber
barrels, dumping them directly into open pits
or lagoons, and injecting them into deep wells.
These strategies reflect “an amalgam of science and engineering mixed with heavy doses
of convenience and expediency” (Colten and
Skinner 1996:46) that did little to ensure protection against migration of chemical wastes
into local ground water and underground aquifer supplies.
A third principle of the implicit urbanwaste compact is that any regulations will
remain narrowly focused on specific waste
streams rather than more general processes of
historical accumulation. This approach reflects
the fiscal realities of poorly funded municipalities and the fact that state and federal regulatory agencies consistently meet fierce,
organized resistance from industry whenever
they step in (Markowitz and Rosner 2002).
Consequently, public efforts to regulate hazardous waste disposal did not occur consistently at the state level until the 1960s, and not
until the mid-1970s at the federal level. The
Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act of 1980
(CERLCA, or Superfund) is a key example of
federal legislation. Implemented in 1983,
CERCLA targeted only the largest, most visible
523
sites of contamination for environmental
remediation, created disincentives for owners
to clean up contaminated property, and discouraged potential buyers from redeveloping
abandoned properties (Leigh and Coffin
2000). The federal government later passed
the Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act
of 1996, which responded to problems created
by CERCLA by relaxing legal liabilities for
redevelopment of contaminated sites.
Within this policy context, local regulators
have continued to rely heavily on industry’s
voluntary compliance and to focus their limited resources on large, highly visible sites
that raise the greatest public concern or obstacle to liability-free redevelopment, effectively
ignoring unknown numbers of smaller hazardous sites that continue to accumulate. Consequently, the historical problem of hazardous
industrial waste in urban areas persists, alongside new regulations that have unintentionally
increased onsite, land-based disposal of hazardous industrial wastes. Indeed, a recent
study shows that although emissions of hazardous wastes and other toxic releases
decreased by 3 percent in North America
during the late 1990s (largely through reductions in air emissions), disposal of hazardous
wastes to land actually increased 25 percent
(Fletcher 2003). Regulatory loopholes and
exemptions have also allowed smaller-scale
waste generators to skirt new treatment rules,
encouraged others to dilute their hazardous
wastes with nonhazardous wastes, and provided large-scale waste generating facilities
incentives to cheat. How and to what extent
these activities continue to occur undoubtedly
varies from city to city, and decade to decade,
but according to Colten (1990:154) there is
little doubt “current environmental laws have
not halted on-site or illegal urban releases”
that continue to accrue and have negative
consequences for urban residents.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Our theoretical framework for understanding
the historical accumulation of land-based
hazardous wastes begins with Beck’s (1992)
524
theory of “risk society,” which has emerged as
a dominant perspective on the social production of toxic uncertainty (Auyero and Swistun
2008; Cable, Shriver, and Mix 2008) and a
source of broad theoretical debate on modernization generally (e.g., Beck, Giddens, and
Lash 1994; Rudel, Roberts, and Carmin
2011).1 Beck’s wide-ranging observations
about the increasingly reflexive nature of risk
make several claims pertinent to the present
study. The first is that today’s risks differ from
and compound those of the past because they
emerge through large-scale technoscientific
processes that result from conscious decisions
by industrialists, engineers, and policymakers
to downplay risks relative to economic growth
and the broader promise of progress. Unlike
early-modern risks associated primarily with
material scarcity: “Today’s risks aren’t fated;
we created them. They are human products
(created at the intersection of technical knowledge and economic decision making) . . .
protected by the state” (Beck 2009:25). As a
result, today’s societies are increasingly characterized by manufactured risk associated
with such unintended industrial side effects as
nuclear radiation, chemical toxins, and other
hazardous wastes. These manufactured dangers signal the decline of industrial society
and the coincident emergence of contemporary risk society.
Beck also claims that the scale and scope
of these newer threats remain largely unknown
despite advances in environmental science
and risk assessment, and that this ambiguity
permits powerful actors to evade accountability and dismiss critics as irrational. Consequently, less visible forms of manufactured
risk must be rescued from state inattention by
social movements (Szasz 1994), popular
works such as Silent Spring or An Inconvenient Truth, and other forms of “subpolitics”
that demonstrate society’s reflexive response
to risk and associated decoupling of politics
from government (Beck 2009:16). Beck’s
more general point is that manufactured risks
have become central features of modernity; as
such, the dualism of society and nature should
be recast to ask how society ought to handle
American Sociological Review 78(4)
the unintended consequences of its intended
transformation of nature. From this perspective, the accumulation of land-based hazards
generated by modern urbanization signals “a
radical institutional crisis” (Beck 2009:92) that
calls for societal reflection and political
change, in which even the present study can be
interpreted as a form of Beckian subpolitics—
a reflexive response to manufactured risk.
Engaging these aims, however, requires
more guidance in moving from general theoretical claims about risk society to empirically grounded research than Beck’s
framework readily offers. This ambiguity
derives in part from heavy emphasis on
reflexive risks and relative inattention to
material hazards. For Beck, as for others (Jaeger et al. 2001), risk remains a probabilistic
statement about the likelihood of future harm.
Its essence lies in the social anticipation,
expectation, and potential action that this
probability produces, thus treating risks and
social definitions of risk as analytically
equivalent. This approach permits a reflexive
account of unintended consequences of
modernity, but it paradoxically limits understanding of the ecological basis of risk society. This limitation arises because material
conditions from which different risks emerge
and spread are not well specified, despite the
theory’s premise of increasing diffusion and
intensity of real and present ecological threats.
Consequently, Beck’s framework tells us relatively little about the recursive transformation
of nature from which today’s risk society
emerges. This compromise is unnecessary.
We contend it is possible to improve
understanding of the ecological basis of risk
society by extending analytic attention from
risks to hazards. By hazards we mean the
material substances (e.g., industrially produced toxins) and biophysical conditions
(e.g., contaminated soils) that are the actual
sources of threat. From this perspective, hazards precondition risk. Moreover, because
they exist in actual time and space, whereas
risks characterize future conditions and possibilities, hazards are empirically measurable
in ways that risks are not. Shifting attention
Elliott and Frickel
from risks to hazards thus provides a way to
recover the material, ecological basis of risk
society while at the same time offering the
potential for theoretical refinement through
empirical analysis. In making this analytic
shift, we theorize hazards not merely as discrete outcomes of modern industrial production but as historical and spatial processes of
urban-ecological change that have become
increasingly, if unevenly, unbounded in time
and space, compounding uncertainties about
the risks they represent (Beck 1992). Focusing on these urban change processes is where
recent research on environmental inequalities
becomes useful.
Researchers in this growing field typically
conceptualize and measure hazards as spatially located outcomes—places such as factories, weapons depots, or landfills that
produce or store industrial hazards. Most
studies then examine spatial relationships
between such places and low-income and
minority residents using cross-sectional data
(for a review, see Mohai, Pellow, and Roberts
2009). However, a few studies using longitudinal data show that uneven spatial distributions of industrial hazards change over time,
often with paradoxical consequences. For
example, in a study of the Greater Boston
area, Krieg (1995; see also 1998) found that
as commercial and industrial activity moved
from the inner city to outer-ring suburbs, it not
only left hazardous wastes in de-industrializing,
minority neighborhoods, but also brought
new forms of pollution to industrializing,
working-class (largely white) suburban communities in the region. Similarly, Downey
(2005:1000, 2007) found that in Detroit, as
polluting industries shifted from the inner city
to select suburbs and “separated the region’s
blacks from suburban manufacturing activity,” working-class whites (not inner-city
blacks) became increasingly exposed to
industrial emissions from operating facilities.
In the same vein, Saha and Mohai (2005)
found that growing public opposition to hazardous waste production and storage in
Detroit has meant siting decisions for new
industrial facilities have followed the path of
least political resistance into low-income and
525
minority neighborhoods, increasing environmental inequality over time.
These longitudinal studies show how the
industrial hazards of risk society are not only
spatially dynamic but aggregative as well.
This is particularly true of industrial hazards
released to land. Because such hazards typically take several generations or more to
biograde, the historical problem they present
is not limited to the uneven diffusion of current hazardous production, such as when
inner-city factories close and relocate to suburban industrial parks. Instead, the historical
problem they present extends to accumulation of hazards over time and space in ways
that lastingly transform the areas where these
hazards accrue. Making proper sense of these
cumulative hazards requires that we move
beyond existing longitudinal analyses to
recover a deeper ecological appreciation for
how processes of urban change recursively
transform the physical environs where they
take (and remake) place. One avenue for such
recovery runs through classic urban ecology.
Nearly a century ago, sociologists began to
analyze the territorial organization of human
behavior by importing concepts of “succession” and “invasion” from plant and animal
ecology into the emergent study of urban
society (Park 1936). For plant and animal
ecologists, succession implied a complex process involving recursive changes to local
biomes; invasion described a simpler, more
linear process of serial replacement of one
biotic community by another, which over
time could contribute to succession. In
extending these concepts to the nascent field
of urban ecology, Park left no doubt that succession was the analytically richer of the two
constructs. In his classic article, “Succession,
an Ecological Concept” (1936:177), he
explained that “changes, when they are recurrent, so that they fall into a temporal or spatial
series—particularly if the series is of such a
sort that the effect of each succeeding increment of change reinforces or carries forward
the effects of the preceding—constitute what
is described in this paper as succession.” In
this way, Hernes (1976:535) explains, Park
conceptualized succession as a recursive,
526
even dialectical, process by which “groups
successively and simultaneously produce
conditions for their own unmaking and for the
generation of other groups. Their actions are
simultaneously productive and counterproductive.” Turning attention to these endogenous processes of urban change, Park
(1936:178) argued that the central focus of
urban ecology should be “any sort of [territorial] change, in fact, which effects an existing
division of labor or the relation of the population to the soil.”
Subsequent research in urban ecology discarded these directives, replacing a broader
focus on recursive urban change with narrower empirical studies of serial invasion of
one type of land user by another (Aldrich
1975). Parallel tendencies are evident in
more recent studies charting the transformation of wilderness or agricultural lands into
newly suburbanized sprawl development
(e.g., Bullard, Johnson, and Torres 2000), as
well as in urban political economy more generally. These studies tend to linearize, or
overlook, the recursive dynamics of urban
change. Take, for example, Logan and
Molotch’s (1987) prominent theory of cities
as growth machines, which maintains urban
ecology’s focus on urban lands as a legitimate object of sociological study (see also
Molotch 1976). This theory draws much
needed attention to how urban development
is contested by social groups with different
interests, power, and government access,
demonstrating how cities are simultaneously
material places and political processes. However, applications of the theory rarely take
into account how these dynamics play out
repeatedly over time in the same urban
spaces, and thus how urbanization becomes
not just a contested process in the present but
also a historical process that continually
builds on the remains of earlier land-use contests. Such theoretical extension, building
from insights of classic urban ecology, highlights the fact that land-use contests do not
start anew but rather unfold (again and again)
on lands transformed by the hazardous wastes
of prior growth machine activities.
American Sociological Review 78(4)
Recovering and extending this ecological
appreciation for how processes of urban
change recursively transform their physical
environs draws attention to how ongoing
shifts in urban economies, populations, and
regulatory policies cumulatively shape current land-use decisions and practices as well
as urban lands as they are reused. From this
perspective, industrial wastes that accumulate
onsite result from interrelated endogenous
forces that play out across urban space repeatedly over time. This accumulation may occur
when one manufacturer occupies and pollutes
a single site for a given period of time, when
different manufacturers reoccupy and repollute the same site sequentially, or when pollutants migrate through soils to adjacent lots
(Litt and Burke 2002). With each subprocess,
the result is the same. As hazardous manufacturers arrive and deposit wastes onsite, they
distribute industrial hazards laterally across
urban landscapes. Where such ecological succession occurs, the effects of accumulation
will tend to scale up as industrialized sites
merge into larger, more contiguous industrialized areas of historically generated hazards.
We theorize that these temporal and spatial
dynamics literally create the environmental
conditions of urban risk society, which we
now understand in empirical terms as the
aggregative product of historically recursive
redevelopment of urban lands—lands that
bear the environmental as well as social
imprint of earlier land-use transformations. In
this reformulation of classic urban ecology,
invasion refers to changes in land users,
whereas succession refers to changes in the
land itself, wrought by onsite disposal and
subsequent accumulation of hazardous industrial waste. In this way our theoretical
approach links the urban with the ecological;
serial demographic changes (invasion) with
lasting environmental changes (succession);
and classic urban ecology with contemporary
political ecology. To demonstrate these connections, we conduct a historical case study
that shows how industrial churning, residential change, and regulatory policymaking
come together in a specific place to produce
Elliott and Frickel
an increasingly hazardous urban landscape.
We selected Portland, Oregon for this case
study because it shows how the production of
such hazardscapes extends beyond rustbelt
cities emphasized in prior research (e.g.,
Bowen et al. 1995; Downey 2007) to older
urban areas throughout the United States,
including areas with reputations for progressive environmental regulation.
HISTORICAL CASE STUDY:
PORTLAND, OREGON
Incorporated in 1851 along the convergent
banks of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers,
Portland has long promoted local economic
growth by dredging navigation channels, infilling marshlands, and developing extensive
dock works that have increased port capacity
for moving the region’s agricultural and forest
products and provided space for warehouses
and small-scale manufacturers along the rivers
(Abbott 1983, 2008; Lang 2010). Such developments continued largely unzoned and unregulated into the late 1930s, when the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers completed the Bonneville
Dam 40 miles up the Columbia River (Robbins
2004). The dam included locks for continued
shipping but also provided cheap, abundant
hydroelectricity to power wartime booms in
shipbuilding and metals manufacturing, which
ushered in the city’s most significant period of
heavy industrialization.
Like other western cities of this period,
wartime production of ships and light metals
attracted thousands of workers, increasing
Portland’s population by 22 percent during
the 1940s and concentrating 40,000 new
workers—25 percent of whom were African
American—into Vanport, the nation’s largest
wartime housing project, built on the city’s
north floodplain. In this community as elsewhere, redlining and covenant agreements
concentrated black workers in environmentally risky housing (Vanport was destroyed by
a flood in 1948) and set the stage for patterns
of residential segregation that mirrored trends
in larger cities (Smith 2005). These agreements also conjoined with local topography
527
and urban planning decisions to produce locally
distinct forms of environmental inequality
(Hovey 1998; Stroud 1999).
By the 1970s, these developments had
generated significant environmental effects
within the city limits and encouraged suburbanization that threatened valuable agriculture and timber lands in the surrounding
region (Leo 1998). Such developments were
not unique to Portland (see Rudel 1989), but
the political response was. Pressured by local
activists and empowered by new federal and
state regulations, city officials instituted a
series of initiatives to clean up Portland’s rivers, redevelop the largest, most visibly hazardous sites, and enhance local quality of life
through affordable housing programs, mass
transit, and downtown revitalization (Abbott
2001; Hovey 1998; Leo 1998). The cornerstone of these initiatives was a state-mandated
Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) and metropolitan planning board that worked to ensure
suburbanization spread slowly through highdensity development that was “forged of
compromises” among state and local officials, farmers, downtown developers, industrial trade associations, and a variety of local
advocacy groups (Leo 1998:376; see also Jun
2004). This new planning system offered an
alternative to classic growth machine coalitions (Molotch 1976) and laid the foundation
for Portland’s present-day green reputation.
In addition to civic participation, land-use
conversion remains central to this regional
regulatory system. In Portland’s suburbs, conversion of rural lands to new urban uses,
including high-tech manufacturing, is regulated (Walker and Hurley 2011); and in the
city’s core, the same system facilitates the
reuse of already urbanized space and infrastructure by new land users. This invasion
through reuse includes the transformation of
old manufacturing and warehousing facilities
into new office spaces, retail outlets, and residential lofts, and the maintenance of industrial sanctuaries where new manufacturers
can continue to locate and expand over time
(Abbott 2008). Indeed, this continued manufacturing presence—especially in metals and
528
machinery—has helped the city maintain its
industrial base and solidified industry’s footprint in older neighborhoods, some of which
are now growing in population (Gibson and
Abbott 2002). For example, in north Portland’s heavily industrialized neighborhoods,
where hazardous manufacturing remains
prominent, the residential population grew by
64 percent during the past two decades, compared with only 22 percent in the city as a
whole (U.S. Census 2010).
In these ways, reuse of urban lands brings
new generations of workers and residents into
established Portland neighborhoods through
recursive processes of what classic urban
ecologists called invasion. This invasion contributes to collective amnesia about previous
uses and lingering hazards while enabling
new hazardous manufacturers to churn
through old and new sites, altering urban
lands through onsite disposal of hazardous
waste, or what we call succession. This deeper
type of land-use conversion—which changes
not only who does what where but also alters
the biochemical conditions of the land itself—
continues to accumulate within Portland’s
urban core, even as city officials use federal
and state resources to identify, test, and remediate select parcels. In this way, economic,
demographic, and political forces combine to
generate new hazardous sites while reusing
and thus obscuring older ones from view.
Revitalization of Portland’s urban core has
thus not resolved the cumulative ecological
problem of relict industrial waste. Instead, it
has distributed it across an expanding and
increasingly diverse array of residential
groups and economic activities that continue
to churn endogenously within city limits. In
fact, a recent study by Eckerd (2011) found
no correlation between gentrified urban
neighborhoods and environmental cleanup of
known hazardous waste sites—a finding consistent with Bullard and colleagues’ (2000)
more general contention that anti-sprawl policies democratize exposure to environmental
hazards by keeping wealthier residents in
closer proximity to them, and with Rudel,
O’Neill, and colleagues’ (2011) finding along
similar lines in Northern New Jersey.
American Sociological Review 78(4)
Thus, even for a city that remains relatively industrialized and has institutionalized
significant land-use regulations, Portland’s
historical development is less exceptional
than its popular reputation suggests. Like
Detroit, Cleveland, and other rustbelt cities,
Portland has a long history of industrial pollution (Eckard 2011; Lang 2010) and patterns
of residential segregation and discriminatory
housing policies (Smith 2005; Stroud 1999).
Also, Portland’s UGB—a feature now shared
with more than 180 U.S. cities (Uri and Bayer
2003)—did not stop suburban growth but
instead urbanized it while creating renewed
pressure for gentrified redevelopment of the
urban core, ushering new residential populations into close proximity to historically accumulating industrial hazards. Early and
proactive efforts to clean up the worst of these
hazards and to reclaim underutilized industrial lots are distinctive, but like other older
cities facing similar problems, Portland has
relied largely on federal legislation—primarily CERCLA in the 1980s and the EPA brownfields program since the 1990s—to organize
and fund these limited efforts. Under such
constraints, local environmental agencies
focus more on risk containment than on the
deeper ecological problem we identify here—
the historical accumulation of industrial hazards through successive waves of soil
contamination and site reuse.
DATA AND METHODS
To identify the dominant industries depositing hazardous wastes to onsite lands in the
City of Portland, we began with the (earliest
available) 1988 Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI) database assembled by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA
2010).2 County-level reports from this source
indicate that more than 18 million pounds of
hazardous industrial wastes have been disposed onsite in Multnomah County (City of
Portland) since 1988,3 originating from four
prominent sectors. In order of volume, these
sectors are primary metals, chemicals, transportation equipment (mostly shipbuilding),
and fabricated metals. To these four sectors
Elliott and Frickel
we added petroleum refining and plastics/rubber production4 that, although not listed as
significant sources of toxic releases during
the 1980s when TRI data were first reported,
were common onsite waste disposers with a
strong local presence in Portland during the
post-WWII era (Abbott 2001).
Prior research by Noonan and Vidich
(1992) confirms that the average probability
of onsite contamination from these six industrial sectors is extremely high, ranging from
an estimated 83 percent among sites of primary metals production to 95 percent among
sites of petroleum refining and plastics manufacturing.5 On this basis, we assume the sites
of hazardous manufacturing we analyze likely
contain contaminated soils, regardless of the
size of the operation in question. The broader
point is that, although larger establishments
tend to produce more waste (and thus may
pose comparatively greater risk) than smaller
establishments, the deeper underlying problem is aggregative and universal. It is aggregative because contaminated soils accumulate
over time if not regularly monitored and
remediated; it is universal because small and
large firms alike produce waste and, intentionally or not, dispose of it onsite.
Next, we identified local sites where these
six industries operated during 1956 to 2006
using the Directory of Oregon Manufacturers,
an underutilized source of information on
industrial facilities well-suited for studies
such as ours (Downey 2005; Krieg 1995,
1998). Beginning with the 1956 Directory and
proceeding every other year through 2006, we
located every address corresponding to facilities operating in each sector. To minimize
inclusion of corporate offices rather than
actual manufacturing facilities, we excluded
all P.O. Box addresses as well as addresses
identified as headquarters or home offices.
This inventory net 2,851 unique sites occupied
by 2,490 different establishments that
remained in local operation for more than one
year. For each establishment, we collected
information on firm name, number of employees, and Standard Industrial Classification
529
(SIC) codes for products manufactured at that
facility. By geocoding respective addresses
and using GIS software, we can track respective sites as they enter and exit operation.
We merged this facility-site data with two
existing data sources. First, we used historical
U.S. Census data collected at the tract level
between 1950 and 2000, which includes
information about the age and vacancy of
local housing stocks and about residents’
changing demographic composition. We
examined local areas’ changing physical and
social dimensions within the city for all census years by standardizing all tracts to original 1950 boundaries and using constant city
limits, as designated in 1950. This means we
measured observed changes and estimated
correlations with hazardous site accumulation
for the same spatial units over the entire
50-year study period. In almost all cases, tract
boundaries remained identical over time, simplifying the process. In most remaining cases,
the 1950 tract simply split into two or more
tracts that we could readily re-aggregate to
original boundaries by summing data from
constituent tracts. However, in three anomalous cases, two 1950 tracts first had to be
merged into a single super-tract to permit
standardization to original boundaries over
time, resulting in 58 historically observed
tracts rather than the 61 tracts originally identified in 1950. Data for these standardized
tracts in 1950 and 1960 come from the Bogue
Data Files (Bogue 1950) available electronically through ICPSR; data for standardized
tracts in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 come
from Geolytics’ Neighborhood Change Database (Geolytics 2000). To estimate changes
within tracts during specific time periods, we
used simple linear interpolation because it
introduces the fewest assumptions and is
highly reliable for small area estimates (Chi
2009), with the baseline being the variable’s
estimated value in the first year of the respective period (e.g., 1956 for period 1).
Next, we paired our site data with the
Oregon DEQ dataset on known and suspected
hazardous waste sites. At time of retrieval,
530
this publicly available inventory of 716 sites
included all contaminated and potentially
contaminated sites identified since 1988
within Portland’s city limits (Oregon DEQ
2011). Importantly for our purposes, this list
is historically cumulative, containing older
sites of concern as well as those of more
recent vintage. It is also broadly inclusive,
including suspected (but unconfirmed) hazardous waste sites and sites that have undergone CERCLA Phase I environmental
assessment. Among the latter, the list includes
sites that have been remediated and sites
awaiting cleanup. By examining this dataset
alongside our own site dataset, we can assess
the likelihood of different types of industrial
parcels coming under regulatory review (see
Guignet and Alberini 2010).
To gain a sense of the reuse of hazardous
industrial sites over time, we randomly sampled 120 addresses from our own site dataset
and, in 2008, conducted in-person site surveys to document their current uses and surrounding environs. At each site, we took
digital photographs and used detailed satellite
maps to refine field observations and maximize data quality. For sites that appeared to
be in commercial operation, we consulted
company websites, local business directories,
and the EPA’s TRI records to determine if
onsite operations were considered hazardous.
Together, these data collection efforts provide one of the most historically and spatially
sensitive datasets developed to date on urbanecological changes associated with industrially produced hazards. Nonetheless, some
limitations remain. For example, manufacturing directories contain no information about
the physical size of industrial parcels, and
they do not capture retail sites such as gas
stations or dry cleaners that only store—and
leak—hazardous materials onsite. Overshadowing such limitations, however, is the fact
that our data collection strategy surmounts
three major challenges that have hampered
prior research. The first challenge is to historicize sample selection to avoid simply
selecting sites based on current (and generally
unwanted) land uses that remain visible and
widely recognized at the time of study (e.g.,
American Sociological Review 78(4)
Litt and Burke 2002). The second challenge is
to refine analyses spatially to take account of
both site-level dynamics and the local areas in
which these sites are embedded simultaneously and interactively. The third challenge is
to balance the local specificity offered by indepth case studies against national-level studies that offer generalizable findings but are
largely inattentive to local conditions and historical processes. By using statistical analysis
and spatial modeling techniques to conduct
our local historical analysis, we forge a middle
path between large-scale quantitative studies
and fine-grained, site- and neighborhoodspecific analyses, thereby blending strengths
of each while offering a possible route to
future comparative research across cities.
For analytic purposes, we subdivided our
investigation of Portland into four regulatory
periods. The first runs from 1956 to 1973, a
period that experienced rapid industrial
expansion and limited efforts by city, state,
and federal officials to regulate hazardous
waste disposal. The second period runs from
1974 to 1982, beginning with the advent of
Portland’s UGB policy and ending with
implementation of federal CERCLA legislation targeting derelict hazardous sites. The
third period runs from 1983 to 1996, beginning with CERCLA implementation and ending just before implementation of the federal
Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act,
which provided cities with funds to inventory
derelict industrial lands and offer economic
incentives for private-sector brownfields
redevelopment. The final period runs from
1997 to 2006, during which time existing
regulatory policies were increasingly relaxed
at the federal level and burdens of enforcement further shifted to municipalities.
To assess how industrial hazards accumulated spatially over the respective time periods,
we used Moran’s I statistic and spatial regression techniques. Moran’s I is the most common
measure of spatial autocorrelation and allowed
us to assess spatial clustering across tracts over
different historical periods (Cliff and Ord
1981; Moran 1950). For regression analyses,
tests indicated significant spatial autocorrelation in our outcome variables; therefore, we
Elliott and Frickel
531
Table 1. Active, New, and Relict Sites of Hazardous Manufacturing, by Subperiod and Size
Active
Subperiod and Size a
Newly Emergent and
Relict
Total
Relict Sites
New Sites
Exiting
Cumulative
Sites
Entering
Operation Sites Ever in
Operating Operation for for Last
Operation
at Start of
First Time Time (Avg. by End of
Subperiod (Avg. per year) per year)
Period
All Sites
1956 to 1973: pre-UGB
1974 to 1982: UGB to CERCLA
1983 to 1996: CERCLA to Brownfields Act
1997 to 2006: Post-Brownfields Act
298
430
449
445
51.9
53.9
33.2
66.8
36.8
47.4
37.5
44.2
1,233
1,718
2,183
2,851
Large Sites (100+ employees)
1956 to 1973: pre-UGB
1974 to 1982: UGB to CERCLA
1983 to 1996: CERCLA to Brownfields Act
1997 to 2006: Post-Brownfields Act
24
58
70
66
2.7
3.9
2.6
3.0
.8
3.2
2.9
3.4
73
108
145
175
Small Sites (<10 employees)
1956 to 1973: pre-UGB
1974 to 1982: UGB to CERCLA
1983 to 1996: CERCLA to Brownfields Act
1997 to 2006: Post-Brownfields Act
105
205
242
200
28.6
31.7
17.8
35.6
23.1
27.6
20.8
16.5
620
905
1,159
1,510
a
Establishment size is measured as the mean number of employees observed during all years of
operation in hazardous manufacturing.
estimated models using a spatially lagged
dependent variable. This variable measures
and statistically controls for spatial dependence among neighboring tracts, which if left
unattended can violate assumptions of independence (Anselin and Bera 1998; Voss
et al. 2006). To compute this spatial lag we first
used Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
software to construct a queen, first-order contiguity matrix, which identifies adjacent tracts
in a movement similar to that of a queen in
chess, with neighboring units selected based
on shared borders radiating out from the
observed unit, or tract, on all sides and diagonal corners. From these neighboring tracts, we
computed an average value of the dependent
variable as a spatial lag. Use of this lag as an
independent variable assumes that spatial
dependence in the outcome variable operates
as a relatively short-distance spatial process
whereby proximity increases interaction and
similarity among neighboring tracts.
RESULTS
We present our results in five sections. The
first examines accumulations of active and
relict hazardous industrial sites over the past
50 years; the second investigates their shifting spatial configuration over the same period.
The third section adds census data to examine
local correlates of newly emergent and relict
industrial sites, and the fourth adds DEQ data
to determine which sites are most likely to
receive regulatory attention. The final section
summarizes site-survey research on what relict industrial sites tend to become with reuse.
Historical Accumulation
Table 1 reports the number of hazardous
manufacturing sites operating in the City of
Portland during 1956 to 2006, by subperiod
and establishment size. Three patterns stand
out. The first reveals the sheer accumulation
532
of such sites over time. In 2006, 445 hazardous manufacturing sites were in operation, up
from 298 in 1956. During the intervening 50
years, more than 2,800 such sites entered and
exited operation, leaving untold wastes
behind. The second pattern indicates that this
accumulation accelerated over recent years.
Indeed, Table 1 shows that from 1997 to
2006, the number of new sites entering operation averaged 66 per year—the highest rate of
any observed subperiod since 1956 and double the previous subperiod, 1983 to 1996,
when CERCLA was first implemented. The
third pattern shows that this historic accumulation was driven largely by the opening and
closing of small and medium-sized manufacturers largely exempt from reporting hazardous waste releases. These smaller facilities
are especially prevalent in chemicals, transportation equipment, and metals production
(primary and fabricated).
These findings affirm the value of close
historical research for documenting the accumulation of hazardous sites in older urban
areas. They also show that this accumulation
has been driven largely by the churning of
small- and medium-sized establishments
whose openings and closings are largely
ignored by regulatory agencies charged with
overseeing hazardous waste generation and
disposal. This evidence also affirms prior
research showing that the organizational
structure of hazardous manufacturing is a key
predictor of the temporal accumulation of
industrial hazards (Grant, Jones, and Bergesen
2002).
Spatial Concentration
Table 2 reports global Moran’s I statistics for
new, active, relict, and total sites by historical
subperiod. To compute these spatial statistics
we used 2000 Census tract boundaries as the
unit of analysis because they offer the most
geographically refined boundaries available
and because we are not yet examining historic
census data. Again, three patterns stand out.
First, none of the observed processes of hazardous site accumulation—entrance, exit, and
American Sociological Review 78(4)
total accumulation—are spatially random
during any subperiod, as evidenced by pvalues consistently below .05 (based on 999
permutations). Second, spatial clustering of
current and ever-operating hazardous sites
increased over time, from a Moran’s I of .33
among active sites in 1956 to .42 in 2006; and
from a Moran’s I of .40 among ever-active
sites in 1956 to .44 in 2006. Third, this evidence of increasing spatial concentration of
current and ever-operating sites occurred
despite decreasing spatial concentration
among newly operating and exited sites. How
can this be?
Evidence from Table 2 suggests that since
the mid-1950s, smaller hazardous manufacturers have opened and closed operations on a
growing number of sites throughout the city.
This industrial churning has concentrated
hazardous sites within historic areas of accumulation but also dispersed them into other
areas of the city in relatively random fashion.
In this way, hazardous manufacturers have
pushed into newly industrializing neighborhoods at the same time that they have continued to infill established industrial zones,
much the way ethnic enclaves solidify and
reproduce themselves over time even as individual members relocate to other neighborhoods (Park, McKenzie, and Burgess [1925]
1984; Zunz 2000).
Figure 1 illustrates this process with snapshots of new sites that emerged during each
historical subperiod. These snapshots overlay
a kernel-density map, in which darker areas
outline relative hotspots of new sites. A map
of discrete dots indicates where new sites
emerged outside these hotspots. The result is
a moving picture of hazards accumulation
over space and time. The most striking feature of this dynamic image is that it exhibits
very little change during the post-WWII era,
despite significant and concurrent economic,
demographic, and regulatory changes. Early
hotspots of hazardous accumulation remain
hotspots in more recent periods, clustering
along transportation corridors defined by
floodplains of the Willamette and Columbia
Rivers, just as classic theories of industrial
Elliott and Frickel
533
Table 2. Moran’s I Statistics of Spatial Autocorrelation, by Subperiod
Active
Subperiod
All Sites
1956 to 1973: pre-UGB
1974 to 1982: UGB to CERCLA
1983 to 1996: CERCLA to Brownfields Act
1997 to 2006: Post-Brownfields Act
Newly Emergent and Relict
Total
Cumulative
Sites
New Sites
Relict Sites Sites Ever in
Operating
Entering
Exiting
Operation
at Start of Operation for Operation
by End of
Subperiod First Time for Last Time
Period
.330*
.336*
.377*
.417*
.364*
.413*
.397*
.337*
.385*
.326*
.413*
.319*
.396*
.430*
.448*
.441*
Note: Unit of analysis is Census 2000 tracts.
*p < .05 (two-tailed tests); based on 999 permutations with a Queen-One matrix.
ecology might predict (Harris and Ullman
1945; Hoyt 1939). Similarly, new hazardous
sites continued to emerge here and there during all four periods. This spatial stability over
time raises questions about the shifting social
and built environments nearby.
Local Correlates of Active and Relict
Accumulation
We then used spatially informed panel regression models to examine the extent to which
changes in local census tracts correlated with
two subprocesses of hazards accumulation:
new site operation (which changes the land
itself via onsite waste disposal) and site exit
(which opens this land to subsequent reuse).
For these models, we used constant 1950 tract
boundaries as our unit of analysis. To control
for variation in tract size and thus spatial
opportunities for new site operation and exit,
we computed each dependent variable as the
average spatial density per year of new entries
(or exits). We did this for each subperiod,
yielding four successive panels per tract. To
measure changes in residential and industrial
composition, we focused on two sets of factors. The first highlights changes in local
demographic and residential populations over
time and includes changes in average family
income, rate of owner occupancy, and racial
composition (percent white), in addition to
changes in residential vacancy and average
age of residential structures. The second set of
factors focuses on industrial clustering, measured as the density of hazardous sites in operation in the tract at the start of the subperiod and
our spatially lagged dependent variable of
concurrent change in surrounding tracts during the same subperiod.
To estimate these models, we followed
established practice in spatial statistics and
used maximum likelihood (ML) methods (cf.
Blonigen et al. 2007). We also took advantage
of the panel structure of our data to predict
each dependent variable two ways: once
using random effects and once using fixed
effects. The random-effects model predicts
the dependent variable allowing unobserved,
time-invariant differences between tracts to
play a role (e.g., location alongside the river
or a major highway). The fixed-effects model
purges these time-invariant factors to focus
on changes within tracts over time, controlling for fixed, or stable, differences among
them. Comparing results across both models
illuminates the extent to which time variant
and invariant factors influenced local accumulation and potential reuse of hazardous
sites. Results appear in Table 3 and reveal
several patterns.
First, changes in median family income,
owner occupancy, racial composition, and
residential vacancy show no significant correlation with entry and exit of hazardous
manufacturers in the local census tract over
534
American Sociological Review 78(4)
Figure 1. New Sites of Hazardous Manufacturing in the City of Portland, by Subperiod
time, regardless of model specification.6 In
fact, the only census-based indicator to show
a significant correlation is change in average
age of residential structures. This factor
exhibits no correlation with site entry, but it
does correlate positively with site exit. This
suggests areas with more extensive preservation and reuse of older structures are more
likely to expel existing hazardous manufacturers, all else equal, but not prevent them
from entering new sites elsewhere in the tract,
thereby shifting rather than reducing ongoing
accumulation in the area.
Table 3 also affirms that existing industrial
hotspots, as indicated by high densities of
already-operating sites and high rates of new
entry in surrounding areas, significantly influence site entrance and exit within the local
tract. However, this influence varies greatly
by model specification. In the random-effects
model, the positive and statistically significant coefficients for respective indicators
imply that, when time-invariant differences
among tracts (e.g., physical location) are considered, areas located within established
industrial zones gain more new sites, all else
Elliott and Frickel
535
Table 3. Panel Regression Models Predicting Spatial Density of New Site Entrance and Exit
within Portland Census Tracts, 1956 to 2006
Density of
New Sites
Independent Variables
Temporal and Spatial Clustering
Number of operating sites at start of subperiod
Spatially lagged dependent variable
Historical Subperiod
1956 to 1973 (reference)
1974 to 1982
1983 to 1996
1997 to 2006
Residential Change
∆ Mean family income, logged
∆ Owner occupancy (%)
∆ White (%)
∆ Unit vacancy (%)
∆ Mean age of residential units (years)
RandomEffects
Model
FixedEffects
Model
Density of
Exiting Sites
RandomEffects
Model
FixedEffects
Model
.072***
(.009)
.274***
(.071)
–.019*
(.008)
–.510***
(.129)
.075***
(.005)
.246***
(.054)
.051***
(.008)
.242*
(.095)
.049
(.091)
–.323***
–.042
(.068)
–.258***
–.029
(.063)
–.216**
(.092)
–.033
(.097)
.150*
(.066)
–.114
(.070)
.195*
(.075)
(.068)
–.176*
(.073)
(.066)
–.116
(.072)
.064
(.036)
–.771
(2.487)
–1.543
(5.930)
4.215
(12.007)
.062
(.078)
.015
(.030)
–1.597
(1.696)
–.771
(4.316)
7.288
(8.503)
–.072
(.070)
.017
(.026)
–3.394
(1.837)
–.456
(4.391)
15.471
(8.841)
.194**
–.004
(.029)
–2.557
(1.577)
2.537
(4.052)
17.768*
(7.939)
.181**
(.059)
(.066)
.097
(.054)
.109
(.035)
.305
(.017)
.114
(.070)
–.085
(.167)
0
.256
(.012)
231
58
–65.6
10
231
58
–13.6
67
Constant
Sigma_u
Sigma_e
Rho
.209***
(.076)
.141
(.064)
.410
(.025)
.106
(.093)
N (tract-subperiod observations)
N (tracts)
Log Likelihood
Degrees of Freedom
231
58
–133.0
10
.823***
(.186)
0
.272
(.012)
231
58
–26.7
67
Note: All models use Maximum Likelihood estimation and exclude one outlying observation (tract 50 in
1997 to 2006). Robust standard errors are in parentheses.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p <.001 (two-tailed tests).
536
equal, reproducing hotspots evident in Figure
1. Yet, in the fixed-effects model that statistically controls for time-invariant differences
among tracts, we find the opposite pattern:
coefficients for temporal and spatial clustering become negative and statistically significant. This statistical shift between models
affirms that concentration and dispersion
have worked simultaneously to distribute
hazardous sites throughout the city over
recent decades. To better understand these
dynamics, it is useful to look closer at the
models predicting site exit, which creates and
opens relict parcels for reuse.
Here respective coefficients in Table 3
indicate strong, positive spatial and temporal
autocorrelation, regardless of model specification. This suggests hotspots are not due to
hazardous facilities that stay in operation for
long periods of time; instead, hotspots attract
facilities that continually enter and exit operation over relatively short periods across an
expanding array of new parcels. Over time,
this industrial churning produces an increasingly uniform hazardscape that becomes less
confined to a few, discrete active sites and
instead expands to a mix of new and relict
sites that blur into one another, leaving fewer
and fewer parcels untouched by industrial
development. These dynamics raise considerable challenges for regulatory agencies
charged with monitoring and remediating
industrial hazards.
Selective Regulation
Table 4 examines the likelihood that Oregon’s
DEQ reviewed a hazardous site in our dataset.
By the end of 2010, the DEQ reported
reviewing 716 contaminated and potentially
contaminated sites within the City of Portland,
including 170, or 6 percent, of the 2,851 sites
in our dataset (Oregon DEQ 2011). To determine which manufacturing sites are most
likely to invite (or avoid) regulatory review,
we estimated three logistic regression models.
The first two models focus on establishmentrelated characteristics, including relative size
of operations (measured as the natural log of
the mean number of employees observed for
American Sociological Review 78(4)
all active years of hazardous manufacturing),
total years in hazardous operation, last year of
hazardous operation, and major sector of last
hazardous operation. Model 1 conducts this
analysis for all sites within the contemporary
city limits; Model 2 repeats this analysis for
sites within the historic 1950 city limits; and
Model 3 adds tract-level covariates, which
include the estimated value of each variable
in 1983, when DEQ started its review process, and its change between 1983 and 2010.
By including start and change scores for tractlevel variables in the same model, we can
assess the relative influence of each while
controlling for regression to the mean among
change scores over time. Results appear in
Table 4 and reveal several patterns.
First, use of contemporary or historic city
boundaries yields the same basic finding.
Sites occupied by larger facilities for longer
periods of time are significantly more likely
to receive regulatory attention from DEQ, all
else equal. Indeed, in our database, the average site reviewed by DEQ employed 116
workers and operated for 20 years—an anomaly among post-WWII hazardous manufacturing sites. In fact, appropriate calculations
from Model 2 indicate that, all else equal, a
hazardous manufacturing site that once
employed 100 workers is five times more
likely to receive regulatory review than an
otherwise similar site that employed only 10
workers. This finding complements research
showing that regulatory monitoring of hazardous industrial facilities varies significantly
by organizational structure (Grant et al. 2002;
Grant et al. 2010) and size (Weil 1997).
Second, results show that not all targeted
sectors receive similar attention despite all sectors being top generators of priority chemicals
nationally (see U.S. EPA 2011). Specifically,
results show that sites once occupied by chemical and petroleum manufacturers are far more
likely to receive regulatory attention than are
those occupied by manufacturers of plastics,
fabricated metals, and industrial machinery.
Indeed, appropriate calculations from Model 2
indicate that, all else equal, an active or relict
site of plastics manufacturing is about eight
times less likely to receive review than an
Elliott and Frickel
537
Table 4. Logistic Regression Models Predicting Log-Odds of Site Review by the Local
Department of Environmental Quality
Independent Variables
Contemporary
City Limits
Hazardous Site Characteristics
Size (mean number of employees during hazardous
operation, logged)
Duration (number of years in hazardous operation)
Last year of hazardous operation (e.g., 1994)
Last sector of hazardous operation
Chemicals (reference)
Petroleum
Plastics and rubber
Primary metals
Fabricated metals
Industrial machinery
Transportation equipment
Tract Characteristics at Start of CERCLA, 1983
Total site-years of hazardous industry 1956 to 1983, logged
Historic City Limits a
.474***
(.064)
.046***
(.006)
.008
(.007)
.436***
(.092)
.043***
(.008)
–.002
(.010)
.411***
(.091)
.042***
(.008)
.001
(.010)
.465
(.374)
–1.896***
(.407)
–.419
(.325)
–1.196***
(.246)
–1.407***
(.243)
–.876*
(.397)
.329
(.376)
–1.716**
(.588)
–.451
(.392)
–1.255**
(.368)
–.696***
(.375)
–1.026
(.644)
.326
(.381)
–1.602**
(.601)
–.511
(.392)
–1.218**
(.381)
–1.702***
(.392)
–.964
(.670)
.354*
(.181)
–.899
(.765)
1.680
(1.211)
–.862
(1.279)
6.793
(9.049)
.029
(.015)
Mean family income, logged
Owner occupancy (%)
White (%)
Unit vacancy (%)
Mean age of residential units (years)
∆ in Tract Characteristics, 1983 to 2008
∆ Site-years of hazardous industry, logged
∆ Mean family income, logged
∆ Owner occupancy
∆ White (%)
∆ Unit vacancy
∆ Mean age of residential units
Constant
N (all sites, past and present)
N (tracts)a
Log Likelihood
Degrees of Freedom
a
–20.734
(14.188)
2,831
220
–501.8
9
.473
(19.008)
1,423
59
–261.9
9
–.327
(.440)
–1.076
(.313)
2.643
(1.625)
–.865
(1.497)
10.923**
(4.242)
.027
(.015)
2.326
(20.935)
1,417
58
–256.0
21
Historic city limits incorporate less physical space than contemporary city limits and tend to have spatially larger
census tracts. Robust standard errors are in parentheses.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p <.001 (two-tailed test).
538
otherwise similar site currently or formerly
occupied by petroleum-related manufacturing.
Third, Model 3 reveals two significant
tract-level patterns. First, sites located in historic areas of hazardous industry—as indicated by a strong presence of hazardous
manufacturers prior to 1983—are much more
likely to receive DEQ attention than are similar sites located elsewhere in the city. The
same is true for sites in areas with declining
rates of residential occupancy, which is consistent with more general regulatory efforts to
target areas with slumping housing markets in
order to improve exchange values in historic
manufacturing zones.
Cumulatively, these findings indicate that
even with some of the most aggressive regulatory policies in the nation, Oregon’s DEQ
remains disproportionately focused on large
chemical and petroleum facilities located in
traditional industrial zones where housing
demand has been historically low. Despite
municipal brownfield inventories showing
average lot sizes of “well below one acre”
(Wernstedt et al. 2004:8; see also Miller et al.
2000a, 2000b), environmental regulation of
potentially hazardous areas remains narrowly
focused on large, visible sites—perhaps
because they are deemed worst cases or
because they represent attractive opportunities for large-scale redevelopment. Either
way, such selective regulation systematically
ignores thousands of relict sites once occupied by small and medium-sized manufacturers located inside and outside historic
industrial zones (see Hawkins 1984).
Site Reuse
How have recursive reuse, or invasion,
affected the hazardous sites identified in this
study? One example is the 12-acre parcel
formerly occupied by Allied Plating.
Consistent with historical patterns, between
1957 and 1969, Allied Plating dumped wastes
containing chromium, nickel, copper, lead,
and cyanide into the Columbia River floodplain. After 1969, the company began dumping these wastes onsite into surface
impoundments that, in 1987, were reviewed
American Sociological Review 78(4)
by DEQ and found hazardous to humans. The
site was subsequently remediated by excavating 900 tons of contaminated soil and sludge
and treating and disposing of it in an off-site
landfill, using federal monies. The reused site
now hosts a mix of fast food and retail establishments in addition to small manufacturers
and storage lots. Yet, as our analyses indicate,
most sites have received far less attention and
federal assistance.
Visits to 120 randomly selected sites from
our dataset revealed that only 17 percent are
still occupied by, and thus visibly associated
with, hazardous manufacturing. By comparison, 21 percent are now occupied by private
residences and public uses that include parks,
government offices, and parking lots. The
majority of sites (62 percent) converted to
nonhazardous commercial enterprises, including offices, restaurants, and other retail outlets. Indeed, none of the sites we surveyed
had become vacant lots indicative of brownfields awaiting redevelopment. Instead, all
but one were actively absorbed and reused
without the benefit of regulatory agency
review or environmental assessment.7
CONCLUSIONS
This study draws attention to the historical
nature of cities associated with ongoing accumulation of hazardous wastes that are changing the ecological basis of urban society. To
understand this transformation, we returned
to classic urban ecology to conceptualize
urbanization as an ongoing process of local
land conversion (succession) and subsequent
reuse (invasion). We then disaggregated this
process into three recurrent subprocesses to
illuminate how they intersect over time and
space in ways that scale up to transform not
just specific sites but entire urban areas ecologically and socially.
The most prominent of these subprocesses
is the churning of hazardous manufacturers
across a growing number of urban parcels
over time. This churning is a form of ecological succession that changes the biochemical
nature of urban lands through onsite disposal
of hazardous waste. A long-term historical
Elliott and Frickel
dynamic, such churning accelerated in Portland over recent decades as the number of
small producers entering and exiting operation increased, expanding the cumulative land
area they transformed inside and outside historic industrial zones. This ecological succession, in turn, intersects with two related
subprocesses that reinforced its operation.
The first subprocess is the invasion, or
reuse, of industrial lands through ongoing and
locally variable processes of commercial
(re)development, demographic change, and
historical preservation. Through such processes new arrivals not only inherit preexisting
soil conditions but also unintentionally feed
social and political conditions for ongoing
hazards accumulation. These conditions
emerge because newcomers typically know
relatively little about prior land users (and
what they deposited onsite), contributing to a
collective amnesia that obscures hazardous
legacies of past industrial practices while
making room for new, smaller establishments
that can more easily accommodate shifting
local land uses. Findings from Portland indicate that such recursive reuse of industrial
lands exposes not only marginalized renters
and working-class homeowners to these
lands’ buried hazards, but also urban dwellers
from a wide array of sociodemographic backgrounds, including middle-class residents
drawn to the urban core by historic buildings,
architectural detail, and pedestrian friendly
neighborhoods (Zukin 1987).
The other relevant subprocess of urbanization is the selective regulation of industrial
lands, which shapes their subsequent reuse
and thus the broader dynamics of hazard
accumulation. Historically, such regulation
relied exclusively on polluters’ voluntary
compliance, but since the 1980s state and
federal regulators have begun to play a more
active role. Yet, findings in Portland indicate
that a selective—if well-meaning—focus on
large, highly visible sites continues to leave
thousands of smaller hazardous manufacturers and the sites they once occupied effectively unregulated. Consequently, increased
public awareness and government regulation
539
of industrial wastes has not slowed their systemic and ongoing accumulation throughout
older U.S. cities.
A major implication of these findings is
that beneath contemporaneous and highly
unequal exposures to known hazardous sites
there exists a much broader and more socially
inclusive exposure to accumulated hazards of
unknown scale and scope. For scholars, this
means the manufactured risks of urbanization
are more systemic, complex, and entrenched
than most extant theories predict, thereby
challenging currently dominant frameworks,
data sources, and methodological debates
over measurement specificity and drawing
attention to hidden hazards. For residents,
policy analysts, and social movements, our
findings suggest that programs aimed at
reducing urban environmental risks must go
beyond targeting new sites of hazardous manufacturing or engaging in selective investigation of large, highly visible brownfield sites
that threaten nearby use and exchange values.
New institutional mechanisms must be
designed specifically to identify less visible,
perhaps forgotten, relict sites and spur the
political will to investigate and remediate the
dangers they collectively present.
In light of these challenges, we see opportunities to extend the present study’s line of
inquiry in two related directions. One direction is to deepen understanding of urban
environmental change. Interested researchers
can pursue this aim by incorporating data on
site contamination or toxicity-weighted pollutant estimates that more directly address the
relative health risks associated with working
and residing in different proximities to accumulated hazards (see Sadd et al. 2011; Woodruff et al. 2009). Future research could also
use public records to generate more detailed
historical data on specific sites (e.g., Litt and
Burke 2002). Such work will not be easy or
straightforward and should avoid reductionist
tendencies to simplify potential health risks to
a specific type or level of chemical exposure
from individual sites. Our research suggests
the risks posed are more systemic; we found
that an increasing range of accumulated
540
industrial hazards likely have diverse and
possibly synergistic health effects in blighted
and gentrifying neighborhoods alike.
A second opportunity for future research is
to focus on forms of subpolitics that are
emerging to confront the historic accumulation of urban industrial hazards. Our study
suggests that continued reliance on local
struggles over new sites or particularly noxious brownfields may not only be shortsighted but may also miss broader and more
endemic causes of hazards accumulation. Yet,
broader trans-urban or even transnational networks organized around shared reflexive concerns about such accumulation—that is, a
globally organized subpolitics of urban risk
society—have yet to fully emerge (Pellow
2007). Such political responses to urban
industrial wastes require further study, not
simply as collective responses to known risk
but as central elements of risk society’s
reflexive engagement with accumulated hazards continuing to transform the historical
nature of today’s cities.
Funding
This research benefited from funding from the National
Science Foundation (Awards 0849826 and 0849823).
Data used in this article will be made available to others
on request beginning in 2014.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Ali O. Ilhan and Mark Leymon for
valuable research assistance. Greg Hooks, Paul Voss,
Don Grant, and six anonymous ASR reviewers provided
generous and constructive feedback on earlier versions of
this article.
Notes
1. Over time, researchers have developed many
approaches to studying risk, variously conceptualized as objectively real, subjectively perceived,
socially constructed, or socially amplified (see
Slovic 2000). For purposes of this study, we find
Beck’s broader institutional framework to be sociologically insightful and promising for further extension and refinement.
2. Relying on TRI data does not ensure that we capture all locally significant industries over the entire
study period because economic shifts prior to 1988
could have altered the mix of relevant sectors.
American Sociological Review 78(4)
However, the database does provide a reliable sample of major polluting industries in Portland at the
mid-point of our historical investigation.
3. Analyses exclude off-site releases and onsite fugitive, or point source, air emissions.
4. Petroleum refining falls under TRI reporting
requirements because the sector is considered to
manufacture fuels (e.g., gasoline), finished nonfuel
products (e.g., solvents), and chemical industry
feedstocks (e.g., propane); by contrast, chemical
feedstocks are used to manufacture plastics. Hence
petroleum refining and plastics manufacturing fall
under different industrial classifications.
5. According to Leigh and Coffin (2000), researchers
use Noonan and Vidich’s estimates because no comparable data exist (see also Amekudzi et al. 1998;
Coffin 2003). Our review of the literature confirms
this assessment. We also found that in Baltimore, at
least, owners of small parcels were just as likely as
owners of large parcels to seek public assistance for
site remediation until regulations changed to favor
larger sites, confirming that pollution has historically accrued across sites of all sizes (Guignet and
Alberini 2010).
6. In addition to analyses in Table 3, we estimated supplemental models to test for interactions between
all historical subperiods and census-tract measures.
Results (available upon request) show no statistically significant patterns at the .05 level, indicating
that conclusions drawn here are consistent across
the entire 50-year period.
7. One sampled site did receive DEQ review in 2008
and had become a dog obedience school by the
time of our site survey. From 1956 to 1989, the
same site was occupied by a company employing
13 people (on average) that produced neon signs.
According to DEQ reports, when interviewed, the
former owner admitted to dumping waste oil and
chemical solvents on lots adjacent to and across the
street from the facility, prompting DEQ to recommend site evaluation. To date, no such evaluation
has actually occurred (Oregon DEQ 2011).
References
Abbott, Carl. 1983. Portland: Planning, Politics, and
Growth in a Twentieth-Century City. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Abbott, Carl. 2001. Greater Portland: Urban Life and
Landscape in the Pacific Northwest. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Abbott, Carl. 2008. Portland’s Working Rivers: The Heritage and Future of Portland’s Industrial Heartland.
Portland, OR: Working Waterfront Coalition.
Aldrich, Howard. 1975. “Ecological Succession in
Racially Changing Neighborhoods: A Review of the
Literature.” Urban Affairs Review 10:327–48.
Amekudzi, Adjo, Paul Fishbeck, James Garrett Jr., Haris
Kautsopoulos, Sue McNeil, and Mitchell Small.
Elliott and Frickel
1998. “Techniques, Cases, and Issues: Computer
Tools to Facilitate Brownfield Development.” Public
Works Management & Policy 2:231–42.
Anselin, Luc and A. Bera. 1998. “Spatial Dependence
in Linear Regression Models with an Introduction to
Spatial Econometrics.” Pp. 237–89 in Handbook of
Applied Economic Statistics, edited by A. Ullah and
D. E. Giles. New York: Marcel Dekker.
Auyero, Javier and Debora Swistun. 2008. “The Social
Production of Toxic Uncertainty.” American Sociological Review 73:357–79.
Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Beck, Ulrich. 2009. World at Risk. Malden, MA: Polity.
Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens, and S. Lash, eds. 1994.
Reflexive Modernization. Cambridge, UK: Polity
Press.
Blonigen, Bruce A., Ronald B. Davies, Glen R. Waddell,
and Helen T. Naughton. 2007. “FDI in Space: Spatial Autoregressive Relationships in Foreign Direct
Investment.” European Economic Review 51:1303–
1325.
Bogue, Donald. 1950. Census Tract Data, 1950 and 1960.
Elizabeth Mullen Bogue File. ICPSR02931-v1. Ann
Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research [distributor], 2000. doi:10.3886/
ICPSR02931.v1
Bowen, William M., Mark J. Salling, Kingsley Haynes,
and Ellen J. Cyran. 1995. “Toward Environmental Justice: Spatial Equity in Ohio and Cleveland.”
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
85:641–63.
Braun, Bruce. 2005. “Environmental Issues: Writing a
More-Than-Human Urban Geography.” Progress in
Human Geography 29:635–50.
Bullard, Robert D., Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O. Torres. 2000. Sprawl City: Race, Politics, and Planning
in America. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Cable, Sherry, Thomas E. Shriver, and Tamara L. Mix.
2009. “Risk Society and Contested Illness: The Case
of Nuclear Weapons Workers.” American Sociological Review 73:380–401.
Chi, Guangqing. 2009. “Can Knowledge Improve Population Forecasts at Subcounty Levels?” Demography
46:405–427.
Cliff, A. D. and J. K. Ord. 1981. Spatial Processes: Models and Applications. London: Pion Limited.
Coffin, Sarah L. 2003. “Closing the Brownfield Information Gap: Some Practical Methods for Identifying
Brownfields.” Environmental Practice 5:34–39.
Colten, Craig. 1990. “Historical Hazards: The Geography
of Relict Industrial Wastes.” Professional Geographer 42:143–56.
Colten, Craig E. and Peter N. Skinner. 1996. The Road to
Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste before EPA.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Cronon, William. 1991. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago
and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton.
Dietrich, Gary N. 1981. “Ultimate Disposal of Hazardous Wastes.” Pp. 1–12 in Toxic and Hazardous Waste
541
Disposal, Vol. 3, edited by R. B. Pojasek. Ann Arbor,
MI: Ann Arbor Science.
Directory of Oregon Manufacturers. 1956 to 2006. Portland: Oregon Department of Economic Development.
Downey, Liam. 2005. “The Unintended Significance of
Race: Environmental Racial Inequality in Detroit.”
Social Forces 83:971–1008.
Downey, Liam. 2007. “U.S. Metropolitan-Variation in
Environmental-Inequality Outcomes.” Urban Studies
44:953–77.
Eckerd, Adam. 2011. “Cleaning Up Without Clearing
Out? A Spatial Assessment of Environmental Gentrification.” Urban Affairs Review 47:31–59.
Fletcher, Thomas H. 2003. From Love Canal to Environmental Justice: The Politics of Hazardous Waste on
the Canada–US Border. New York: Broadview.
Geolytics. 1970 to 2000. Neighborhood Change Database. East Brunswick, NJ: Geolytics, Inc.
Gibson, K. and C. Abbott. 2002. “City Profile Portland,
Oregon.” Cities 19:425–36.
Grant, Don Sherman II, Andrew W. Jones, and Albert J.
Bergesen. 2002. “Organizational Size and Pollution:
The Case of the U.S. Chemical Industry.” American
Sociological Review 67:389–407.
Grant, Don, Mary Nell Trautner, Liam Downey, and
Lisa Thiebaud. 2010. “Bringing the Polluters Back
In: Environmental Inequality and the Organization
of Chemical Production.” American Sociological
Review 75:479–504.
Guignet, Dennis and Anna Alberini. 2010. “Voluntary
Cleanup Programs and Redevelopment Potential:
Lessons from Baltimore, Maryland.” Cityscape
12:7–36.
Harris, Chauncy D. and Edward L. Ullman. 1945. “The
Nature of Cities.” Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 242:7–17.
Harvey, David. 1996. Justice, Nature and the Geography
of Difference. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Hawkins, Keith. 1984. Environment and Enforcement:
Regulation and the Social Definition of Pollution.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hays, Samuel P. 1987. Beauty, Health, and Permanence:
Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–
1985. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hernes, Gudmund. 1976. “Structural Change in Social
Processes.” American Journal of Sociology 82:513–
47.
Heynen, Nik, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw. 2006.
In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the
Politics of Urban Metabolism. New York: Routledge.
Hovey, Bradshaw. 1998. “Building the City, Structuring
Change: Portland’s Implicit Utopian Project.” Utopian Studies 9:68–80.
Hoyt, Homer. 1939. The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities. Washington, DC: Federal Housing Administration.
Huber, William T. and Timothy M. Curie. 2007. “The
Urbanization of an Idea: Imagining Nature through
Urban Growth Boundary Policy in Portland, Oregon.” Urban Geography 28:705–731.
542
Jaeger, Carlo, Ortwin Renn, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas
Webler. 2001. Risk, Uncertainty, and Rational Action.
London: Earthscan.
Jun, Myung-Jin. 2004. “The Effects of Portland’s Urban
Growth Boundary on Urban Development Patterns
and Commuting.” Urban Studies 41:1333–48.
Krieg, Eric J. 1995. “A Socio-Historical Interpretation
of Toxic Waste Sites: The Case of Greater Boston.”
American Journal of Economics and Sociology 54:1–
14.
Krieg, Eric J. 1998. “The Two Faces of Toxic Waste:
Trends in the Spread of Environmental Hazards.”
Sociological Forum 13:3–20.
Lang, William. 2010. “One City, Two Rivers: Columbia
and Willamette Rivers in the Environmental History
of Twentieth-Century Portland, Oregon.” Pp. 96–111
in Cities and Nature in the American West, edited by
C. Miller. Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada
Press.
Leigh, Nancy Green and Sarah L. Coffin. 2000. “How
Many Brownfields Are There? Building an Industrial
Legacy Database.” Journal of Urban Technology
7:1–18.
Leo, Christopher. 1998. “Regional Growth Management
Regime: The Case of Portland, Oregon.” Journal of
Urban Affairs 20:363–94.
Litt, Jill S. and Thomas A. Burke. 2002. “Uncovering the
Historic Environmental Hazards of Urban Brownfields.” Journal of Urban Health-Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine 79:464–81.
Logan, John and Harvey Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Markowitz, Gerald and David Rosner. 2002. Deceit and
Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Miller, T., M. Greenberg, K. Lowrie, H. Mayer, A. Lambiase, R. Novis, D. Ioannides, S. Meideros, and A.
Trovato. 2000a. Brownfields Redevelopment as a
Tool for Smart Growth: Analysis of Nine New Jersey Municipalities. (Report 12 for the Office of State
Planning.) New Brunswick, NJ: National Center for
Neighborhood and Brownfields Redevelopment, Rutgers University.
Miller, T., M. Greenberg, K. Lowrie, H. Mayer, A. Lambiase, R. Novis, D. Ioannides, S. Meideros, and A.
Trovato. 2000b. Addendum: Brownfields Redevelopment as a Tool for Smart Growth: Analysis of Twelve
New Jersey Municipalities. (Addendum to Report 12
for the Office of State Planning.) New Brunswick,
NJ: National Center for Neighborhood and Brownfields Redevelopment, Rutgers University.
Mohai, Paul, David N. Pellow, and Timmons Roberts.
2009. “Environmental Justice.” Annual Review of
Environment and Resources 34:405–430.
Molotch, Harvey. 1976. “The City as a Growth Machine.”
American Journal of Sociology 82:309–330.
Moran, Patrick A. P. 1950. “Notes on Continuous Stochastic Phenomena.” Biometrika 37:17–23.
American Sociological Review 78(4)
Noonan, Frank and Charles A. Vidich. 1992. “Decision
Analysis for Utilizing Hazardous Waste Site Assessments in Real Estate Acquisition.” Risk Analysis
12:245–51.
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
2011. Environmental Cleanup Site Information.
Retrieved September 27, 2011 (http://www.deq.state
.or.us/lq/ecsi/ecsi.htm).
Page, G. William. 1997. Contaminated Sites and Environmental Cleanup: International Approaches to
Prevention, Remediation, and Reuse. San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Park, Robert E. 1936. “Succession, an Ecological Concept.” American Sociological Review 1:171–79.
Park, Robert E., with R. D. McKenzie and Ernest Burgess.
[1925] 1984. The City: Suggestions for the Study of
Human Nature in the Urban Environment. Chicago:
University of Chicago.
Pellow, David N. 2007. Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Robbins, William G. 2004. Landscapes of Conflict: The
Oregon Story, 1940–2000. Seattle: University of
Washington Press.
Rudel, Thomas K. 1989. Situations and Strategies in
American Land-Use Planning. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Rudel, Thomas K., Karen O’Neill, Paul Gottlieb, Melanie McDermott, and Colleen Hatfield. 2011. “From
Middle to Upper Class Sprawl? Land Use Controls
and Changing Patterns of Real Estate Development
in Northern New Jersey.” Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 101:609–624.
Rudel, Thomas K., J. Timmons Roberts, and JoAnn Carmin. 2011. “Political Economy of the Environment.”
Annual Review of Sociology 37:221–38.
Sadd, James L., Manuel Pastor, Rachel Morello-Frosch,
Justin Scoggins, and Bill Jesdale. 2011. “Playing It
Safe: Assessing Cumulative Impact and Social Vulnerability through an Environmental Justice Screening Method in the South Coast Air Basin, California.”
International Journal of Environmental Research and
Public Health 8:1441–59.
Saha, Robin and Paul Mohai. 2005. “Historical Context
and Hazardous Waste Facility Siting: Understanding
Temporal Patterns in Michigan.” Social Problems
52:618–48.
Slovic, Paul. 2000. The Perception of Risk. London:
Earthscan Publishers.
Smith, Chad. 2005. “From Green to Red: The Intersection
of Class and Race in Urban Environmental Inequality.” PhD dissertation, Washington State University,
Pullman, Washington.
Stroud, Ellen. 1999. “Troubled Waters in Ecotopia: Environmental Racism in Portland, Oregon.” Radical History Review 74:65–95.
Szasz, Andy. 1994. EcoPopulism: Toxic Waste and the
Movement for Environmental Justice. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Elliott and Frickel
Tarr, Joel A. 1996. The Search for the Ultimate Sink:
Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. Akron,
OH: University of Akron Press.
Uri, Avin and Michael Bayer. 2003. “Right-Sizing Urban
Growth Boundaries.” Planning February:22–26.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. Census of Population and
Housing, Summary File 1. Washington, DC: U.S.
Census Bureau.
U.S. Congress, House. 1979. Waste Disposal Survey:
Report, 96th Congress, 1st Session, Committee Print
96-IFC 33, 1979, x, and Appendix E.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2010.
2009 TRI National Analysis. Retrived December 30,
2010 (http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri09/national
analysis/index.htm).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agengy (EPA). 2011.
Trends Report Highlights: Industrial Sector Analysis. Retrieved January 10, 2011 (http://www.epa.gov/
osw/hazard/wastemin/minimize/trend10/naics.htm).
Voss, Paul R., David D. Long, Roger B. Hammer, and
Samantha Friedman. 2006. “County Child Poverty
Rates in the U.S.: A Spatial Regression Approach.”
Population Research and Policy Review 25:369–91.
Walker, Peter A. and Patrick T. Hurley. 2011. Planning
Paradise: Politics and Visioning of Land Use in Oregon. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Weil, David. 1997. “Implementing Employment Regulations: Insights on Determinants of Regulatory Performance.” Pp. 429–74 in Government Regulation of
the Employment Relationship, edited by B. Kaufman.
Madison, WI: Industrial Relations Research Association.
Wernstedt, Kris, Lauren Heberle, Anna Alberini, and
Peter Meyer. 2004. “The Brownfields Phenomenon:
Much Ado about Something or the Timing of the
Shrewd?” Discussion Paper 04–46. Washington,
DC: Resources for the Future (http://www.rff.org/rff/
documents/rff-dp-04-46.pdf ).
543
Woodruff, Tracey J., Jennifer D. Parker, Lyndsey A. Darrow, Rémy Slama, Michelle L. Bell, Hyunok Choi,
Svetlana Glinianaia, Katherine J. Hoggatt, Catherine
J. Karr, Danelle T. Lobdell, and Michelle Wilhelm.
2009. “Methodological Issues in Studies of Air Pollution and Reproductive Health.” Environmental
Research 1093:311–20.
Zukin, Sharon. 1987. “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core.” Annual Review of Sociology
13:129–47.
Zunz, Olivier. 2000. The Changing Face of Inequality:
Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants
in Detroit, 1880–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
James R. Elliott is Associate Professor of Sociology at
the University of Oregon. His current research focuses on
urbanization, social inequality, and the environment. In
addition to work on relict industrial waste, he is currently
examining social and spatial dynamics of post-disaster
recoveries and links between urbanization and carbon
emissions at and from the local level. He is past recipient
of multiple university-wide teaching awards and currently co-editor of Sociological Perspectives, the official
journal of the Pacific Sociological Association.
Scott Frickel is Associate Professor of Sociology and
Boeing Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sociology
at Washington State University. He predominantly works on
environment, science, and the politics of knowledge.
Current research projects include a relational sociology of
interdisciplinarity, the sociology of ignorance, and the organization of expert activism. With Jim Elliott, he is developing a book manuscript on a comparative environmental
sociology of cities. He is past recipient of the HackerMullins Student Paper Award, the Star-Nelkin Paper Award,
and the Robert K. Merton Book Award, all from the ASA
Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology.