| In the past twenty years, a wide variety of studies have shown that the most common victims of environmental pollution are people of color and low-income groups. This dissertation develops a theory of environmental discrimination from which to understand such outcomes and tests its key hypotheses with respect to outdoor air pollution from 1970 to 1990.;Race and class ideology are hypothesized to act at two levels to ensure race and class domination in the environment. At the level of individual behavior, many actions taken on environmental matters become discriminatory through routine, individual judgements informed by such ideology. At a structural level, racist and class ideologies can be seen as deeply embedded in the institutions and systems of power that determine environmental outcomes. Structures of domination at both levels explain how institutions in general, and the state in particular move to reflect the interests of powerful actors despite apparently unbiased rules of operation.;Individual models of power and outcomes have yet to be explored in detail for environmental discrimination. Several approaches to analyzing this phenomenon are suggested, including the analysis of the outcomes of governmental service delivery, of different phases in environmental enforcement, and of the ideological origins of specific environmental policies.;Structural models of discrimination are explored empirically through an analysis of race, class, and outdoor air pollution (particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and lead) from 1970 to 1990. Strong associations with race and income are found to persist even after controlling for urbanization, time, climate, and emissions sources, indicating substantial discriminatory dynamics beyond those attributable to facility siting. Not all of these associations are found to be discriminatory, however.;The interaction effect with industrial pollution intensity indicates that some of the unexplained variance arises from differences, by race or income, in labor productivity, technology, and environmental enforcement at a county level. Finally, the legal, financial, and spatial structure of metropolitan areas is also found to generate discriminatory outcomes as urban fragmentation, property taxation, and segregation in 1990 are shown to contribute significantly to air pollution and environmental inequity in metropolitan areas. |
