Noxious New York

In a time of ever-increasing awareness about the ways that the earth is in trouble (and man/woman's responsibility to attend to this problem), it boggles my mind how blind the dominant discourse is to the ways that different groups are impacted differently. "Environmental (in)justice" is not a word that everyone in America understands, sad as that may be. Julie Sze's book Noxious New York is an attempt to expose and discuss how lower-income communities of color are disproportionately impacted by bad environmental conditions. From Sunset Park to Williamsburg to West Harlem to the South Bronx, her book is a journal through the environmental justice struggles of New York City.

The chapter on Garbage really held my attention, since I grew up thinking about garbage. My dad is the recycling director for the county I was raised in, and every time we would pass a landfill or a dump he would slow down and look--he was always talking about the ways that different regions handled their trash. The dangers of the privatization of garbage and globalizing garbage are very real and Sze's discussion of them, as funny as it may initially sound to write a chapter on Garbage, is so important. As she points out, "the changing nature of urban garbage, and the fate of marginalized communities in the cities, is intimately linked to rural impoverished populations through class and race" (122).

This book is so important for all Americans to read,not just those interested in EJ work. I am very interested in what Sze's book would look like if she spent a whole book exploring how the EJ conditions have (or have not) shifted in Williamsburg since the influx of gentrifiers and developments.