Today, I read an article about air pollution in Los Angeles. The article, entitled Balancing economic development with air pollution curbs, highlights the struggles many communities face in modern America. Los Angeles is a twisting maze of freeways, with a city grown up around them. The communities that abut the freeways are primarily low-income and minority. It is these communities that suffer the most harmful effects of air pollution caused by the thousands of trucks and cars that pass by them everyday. The people surrounding Los Angeles freeways suffer from increased asthma risk and occurence, increased cancer and heart disease risk, and danger of underdeveloped lungs. Children in these communities have very high instances of missed school due to respiratory related diseases. Despite the danger of air pollution and the effect that it has already had on Los Angeles communities, the city continues to expand its freeway system.


The article mentions the THE Impact Project. THE (trade, health, environment) Impact Project focuses on addressing health effects associated with air pollution in the Los Angeles and Long Beach port areas, with a specific focus on air pollution caused by traffic. The Project is a community-academic partnership that has worked together to provide education to the communities with the goal of reducing environmental burdens. Community members were given the tools to assess levels of pollution in their neighborhoods, which they then presented to policymakers. The goal of the research is to improve distributive and procedural justice for low-income and minority communities, and ultimately to invoke action by government to reduce the hazards. Despite their efforts, economic factors loom large, and in March of this year the Los Angeles harbor commissioners approved a $500 million rail yard in the city, which would bring tens of thousands of jobs....and a lot more pollution. The coalition doesn't plan to give up, though; an appeal is on the way.

For more information on air pollution in Los Angeles, see http://www.psr-la.org/issues/environmental-health/air-pollution-and-goods-movement/
To read the article, see http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2013/4/spotlight-goods/