HSD: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Social Dynamics of Environmental Equity in Baltimore

城市化是上个世纪人类状况中最重大的变化之一。 随着城市成为世界上大多数人的居住地，新的挑战出现了。 将不同的群体聚集在相对紧凑的地区导致了基于阶级、种族和其他社会动态的不平等。 人口和土地使用的隔离和聚集以及环境舒适和不舒适的分布不均意味着，一些群体将因居住在不受欢迎的土地使用附近而遭受更大的痛苦，而另一些群体则可能因居住在理想的土地使用附近而享受不成比例的好处。 揭露这种不平等的模式和过程负责创造他们的福尔斯属于环境正义，一个日益增长的学术领域，本项目将在新的和创新的方式作出贡献的广泛标题。 通过对巴尔的摩的跨学科、纵向、深入的案例研究，研究人员将确定并解释一个经历了深刻社会经济变革的大型后工业城市的环境公平模式和过程的时空动态。 该项目将采用三种新方法：（1）调查人员将结合联合收割机对环境不平等的模式（结果公平）和导致这些模式的长期过程（过程公平）进行纵向分析，从1880年到现在，这是一个快速工业化以及重大经济和人口变化的时期。 绝大多数的环境正义研究都集中在结果公平上，只是粗略地处理了创造这些模式的过程。 长期的公平模式和过程的系统检查，使用接近有毒物质释放清单，重型制造业场地作为一种不舒适，公园和绿地作为一种舒适，将提供一个强大的，有记录的，和可访问的数据集，将阐明人口特征和舒适/不舒适之间的关系，它们随时间的变化，以及过去动态的遗产对目前模式的影响。 (2)调查项目将整合地理加权回归与公平模式的时间分析。 这种方法将回答环境公平模式是否显示空间和时间的非平稳性，其中因变量和自变量之间的关系可能会随着空间和时间的变化，在环境正义研究的基本问题。 (3)长期的数据收集和分析将使该团队能够测试是否存在与邻里特征变化相关的舒适/不舒适密度之间的全球关系。 纵向数据集还将允许时间滞后的分析，以测试是否以及何时人口特征的变化后，关键的舒适/不舒适thresholds.In广义上讲，从这项研究的结果将加强人口之间的动态关系的科学理解，土地利用和建成的大都市区的形式。 该项目的成果将为城市化模型提供关键的新知识和数据，并为支持减轻环境不公正的有意义的尝试提供必要的理解。 这项研究的数据，调查结果和教育活动将积极促进对环境正义遗产，差异和潜在补救杠杆的长期理解。 这项研究将建立在现有的研究和资源，从巴尔的摩生态系统研究（BES）和城市生态合作（UEC），一个不断扩大的网络，公共和非营利合作伙伴在七个城市在美国东北部，寻求创造健康的城市生态系统。 该项目将通过BES与公共和非营利机构的广泛合作，鼓励不同种族和民族群体积极管理巴尔的摩的环境。 这些伙伴关系将加快向环境倡议管理人员传播研究成果，BES和UEC将把这项研究的数据和结果纳入各自的高中课程。 研究生和本科生将积极参与项目研究、研讨会和会议，并将接受综合城市生态学研究的培训，这是参与机构的核心教育和研究原则。2006财年NSF范围内的人类和社会动力学（HSD）竞赛的奖项支持了该项目。 NSF的所有董事会和办公室都参与了HSD竞赛和HSD奖项组合的协调管理。

Urbanization is one of the most significant changes in the human condition over the last century. As cities become habitat for the majority of the world's people, new challenges arise. Bringing together diverse groups in relatively compact areas has led to inequities based on class, race, and other social dynamics. Segregation and clustering of people and land use and the uneven distribution of environmental amenities and disamenities mean that some groups will suffer more from living near undesirable land uses, while others groups may enjoy disproportionate benefits from residing near desirable land uses. Unmasking such patterns of inequity and the processes responsible for creating them falls under the broad rubric of environmental justice, a growing field of scholarship to which this project will contribute in new and innovative ways. Through an interdisciplinary, longitudinal, intensive case study of Baltimore, the researchers will identify and explain the spatial and temporal dynamics of environmental equity patterns and processes in a large, post-industrial city that has undergone profound socioeconomic change. The project will employ three new methods: (1) The investigators will combine a longitudinal analysis of the patterns of environmental inequity (outcome equity) and the processes that lead to those patterns (process equity) over the long term, from 1880 to the present, a period of rapid industrialization as well as significant economic and population change. The vast majority of environmental justice studies focus on outcome equity with only a cursory treatment of the processes that create those patterns. A systematic examination of equity patterns and processes over the long term, using proximity to Toxics Release Inventory, heavy manufacturing sites as a disamenity, and parks and greenspace as an amenity, will provide a robust, documented, and accessible dataset that will illuminate the relationships between population characteristics and amenities/disamenities, their changes over time, and the impact of the legacies of past dynamics on present patterns. (2) The investigators project will integrate Geographically Weighted Regression with temporal analysis of equity patterns. This method will answer the fundamental question in environmental justice research of whether environmental equity patterns display spatial and temporal nonstationarity, where the relationship between dependent and independent variables may vary over space and time. (3) Long-term data collection and analysis will allow the team to test if there are global relationships between amenity/disamenity densities that relate to shifts in neighborhood characteristics. The longitudinal dataset also will permit an analysis of temporal lags to test if and when population characteristics change after critical amenity/disamenity thresholds are reached.In broad terms, findings from this study will strengthen scientific understanding of the dynamic relationships among population, land use, and built form of metropolitan areas. Results from this project will provide key new knowledge and data for urbanization models as well as necessary understanding to support meaningful attempts to mitigate environmental injustice. The data, findings, and educational activities from this study will actively contribute to long-term understanding of environmental justice legacies, discrepancies, and potential levers for remediation. The research will build upon existing research and resources from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) and the Urban Ecology Collaborative (UEC), an expanding network of public and nonprofit partners across seven cities in the northeast U.S. that seek to create healthy urban ecosystems. The project will encourage active stewardship of Baltimore's environment by diverse racial and ethnic groups through the BES's extensive partnerships with public and nonprofit agencies. Dissemination of research results to managers of environmental initiatives will be expedited by these partnerships, and the BES and UEC will incorporate data and results from this study into their respective high-school curricula efforts. Graduate and undergraduate students will be active participants in the project research, workshops, and meetings and will be trained in integrated urban ecology research, a core education and research principle of the participating institutions.An award resulting from the FY 2006 NSF-wide competition on Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) supports this project. All NSF directorates and offices are involved in the coordinated management of the HSD competition and the portfolio of HSD awards.