|
|
|
Book Review
| Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice. By Julie Sze. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007. x + 282 pp. Illustrations, tables, figures, notes, references, index. Paper $24.00.
|
| Julie Sze provides a refreshing look at environmental justice struggles in Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice. Sze abandons the overworked "race versus class" argument in favor of a nuanced, complicated picture of the policies that created environmental inequalities and the activism surrounding it in New York City. |
1
|
|
Urban planning giant Robert Moses figures prominently in the book as Sze details the effects of his sweeping changes on the landscape of the city. Noxious New York does not necessarily present Moses as outwardly racist, but certainly the effects of his top-down planning, often ignoring the pleas of communities, relegated these areas to degradation. Sze also criticizes more modern leaders, especially Rudolph Guiliani. The former mayor created numerous problems with his support for privatizing waste services and the deregulation of energy, decisions also made in the wake of substantial community opposition. |
2
|
|
In addition to a focus on the importance of urban planning, Sze also refuses to simplify community activism. She notes failures and limitations alongside successes, yielding a balanced portrayal. For example, she describes how community science democratized research, yet the activists also selectively used evidence to their gain. Promising multiracial coalitions against pollution developed in some cases, but Sze notes that these coalitions often failed to last. In addition, sometimes an issue pitted environmental activists against each other. When residents of a wealthy Upper East Side neighborhood protested against a garbage transfer station in their area, they clashed with environmental justice activists from poorer neighborhoods who demanded that all New Yorkers share in the distribution of garbage. These types of stories make Sze's work more valuable as a contribution to the field. |
3
|
|
The work also presents fruitful avenues for additional research. First, in many of Sze's case studies within the Latino community, men form an integral part of the leadership, even when the activism centered around health and children. Environmental justice activism scholarship traditionally notes the high incidence of female participation with these issues. Future scholars need to pursue the cultural reasons for male leadership in these causes. In addition, an integration of the existing literature of women's activism and maternalism would give added depth to Sze's case studies. |
4
|
|
Sze's well-developed book yields few instances for criticism. Overall, however, a more careful organization may have helped with the flow of the book. For example, each chapter contains a literature review and historical background, that, while useful, are somewhat cumbersome, overly detailed, and often obscure key points. For example, Sze contends that New York's environmental justice activism falls outside "NIMBY" standards, yet readers may find this connection difficult to make with the case studies separated by many pages of background and rarely cross-referenced in the text. |
5
|
|
Noxious New York represents a valuable contribution to the maturing field of environmental justice. Sze's layered, complicated picture sheds light on the historical nature of the problem and the roadblocks to successful solutions. In her conclusion, Sze states that the presence of environmental justice activism in New York "enables better questions to be asked" regarding the consequences of planning (p. 208). Sze's work should allow the same within the field of environmental history. |
6
|
|
Elizabeth Blum is associate professor of history at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. Her first book, Love Canal Revisited: Race, Class, and Gender in Environmental Activism is to be published by Kansas in 2008. |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|