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最重大的变化之一。随着城市成为世界上大多数人的栖息地，新的挑战也随之而来。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便利和不便利的分布不均意味着一些群体居住在不理想的土地用途附近将遭受更多的损失，而另一些群体则可能因居住在理想的土地用途附近而享有不成比例的利益。揭示这种不平等的模式和造成这种模式的过程属于环境正义的广泛标题，这是一个日益增长的学术领域，本项目将以新的和创新的方式作出贡献。通过对巴尔的摩的跨学科、纵向、密集的案例研究，研究人员将确定并解释在一个经历了深刻社会经济变化的大型后工业城市中环境公平模式和进程的时空动态。该项目将采用三种新方法：(1)调查人员将结合对环境不平等模式（结果公平）和导致这些模式（过程公平）的长期纵向分析，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。绝大多数环境正义研究关注的是结果公平，而对创造这些模式的过程只做了粗略的处理。对长期公平模式和过程进行系统检查，将有毒物质释放清单、重型制造业场地作为便利设施，以及公园和绿地作为便利设施，将提供一个强大的、有文件记录的、可访问的数据集，该数据集将阐明人口特征与便利/不便设施之间的关系，它们随时间的变化，以及过去动态遗留对当前模式的影响。(2)研究项目将地理加权回归与公平模式的时间分析相结合。该方法将回答环境正义研究中的基本问题，即环境公平模式是否表现出时空非平稳性，其中因变量和自变量之间的关系可能随空间和时间而变化。(3)长期数据收集和分析将允许团队测试是否存在与社区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对时间滞后进行分析，以测试在达到关键的舒适/不舒适阈值后，人口特征是否以及何时发生变化。从广义上讲，本研究的结果将加强对大都市地区人口、土地利用和建筑形式之间动态关系的科学理解。该项目的结果将为城市化模型提供关键的新知识和数据，并为支持有意义的减轻环境不公正的尝试提供必要的理解。本研究的数据、发现和教育活动将积极促进对环境正义遗产、差异和潜在补救手段的长期理解。这项研究将以巴尔的摩生态系统研究（BES）和城市生态合作组织（UEC）的现有研究和资源为基础。UEC是一个由美国东北部七个城市的公共和非营利合作伙伴组成的不断扩大的网络，旨在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，鼓励不同种族和族裔群体积极管理巴尔的摩的环境。这些伙伴关系将加速向环境倡议的管理人员传播研究结果，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财年美国国家科学基金会人类与社会动力学竞赛（HSD）的一个奖项支持了这个项目。所有NSF理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.