Finding Fairness in America's Cities? The Search for Environmental Equity in Everyday Life

This article argues that any consideration of green justice cannot be limited solely to wilderness areas; it must include natural resources as they are manifested in urban areas. We discuss the ways in which residents' images of the natural world are shaped by various institutional forces, including corporations and government of all types. We link up these insights to the growing recognition that there exists an inequitable distribution of natural resources within American cities, a phenomenon identified by residents as “environmental racism”. We argue that in order to analyze this situation, it is necessary to generate new analytical tools, and an Environmental Equity Assessment (EEA) is presented. The use of the EEA is presented in a brief case study of Tucson, Arizona.