Environmental Justice Versus Market Efficiency: the Spatial Distribution of Public Funding for Brownfield Site Cleanups in Michigan

Keywords: environmental justice, shrinking cities, green cities, urban geography, Detroit, Rust Belt
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 21

Abstract

This study compares the spatial distribution of public funds allocated for restoring deindustrialized sites based on neoliberal criteria of market efficiency versus grants distributed based on broader considerations of community need and environmental and spatial justice. Michigan’s approach to restoring the state’s many empty, potentially contaminated industrial sites has been to promote public-private partnerships to leverage market forces and private sector investment through the use of tax increment financing. The U.S. EPA, on the other hand, has adopted environmental and spatial justice criteria for their site restoration grant programs, prioritizing distressed communities and seeking a balanced geographic distribution of grants. Our findings suggest that market-based subsidy programs were able to leverage far greater investment but failed to address the needs of Michigan’s shrinking, deindustrialized communities such as Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw.