Photo by ImagesbyK - Getty Images
Milwaukee at Night
A new comprehensive study by the UWM’s Center for Economic Development (CED) examines environmental equity in the Milwaukee metro area. The report explores four separate themes: housing and lead exposure, climate change and environmental amenities, industrial pollution and motor vehicle pollution. The study area includes Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties.
Nene Osutei, the report’s co-author with Joel Rast, told the Shepherd Express that the project’s goal was to create “a detailed inventory of environmental risk in Milwaukee.” While there are several ways of looking at and measuring environmental equity in metropolitan areas, the “principal lens” the authors use is that of race and ethnicity. In particular, they sought to “determine whether predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods face the same degree of environmental risks and enjoy the same access to environmental amenities as neighborhoods that are mostly white.”
Osutei is a senior researcher and policy analyst at the CED. His research focuses on urban development and environmental equity. His academic interests also lie in exploring how neighborhoods change over time and how institutional environments can shape urban development processes. He approaches these questions using quantitative and spatial analytical methods. Rast is director of the CED and UWM’s Urban Studies Department, and a professor of political science. His teaching interests include urban development/redevelopment since World War II, urban politics, environmental politics and the politics of climate change.
The project was informed by an extensive body of literature on the topic of environmental justice, “much of which finds evidence of significant disparities in the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens along racial and ethnic lines in cities and states around the country. Our goal was to determine whether the Milwaukee region fits this pattern.”
Osutei said that they spent about a year and half collecting and analyzing many forms of data. They drew from research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as Wisconsin’s departments of transportation, natural resources and health services, among other sources.
The researchers found many instances of environmental inequities, especially in disparities in park space, tree canopy coverage and the presence of “heat islands,” as well as exposure to lead in homes. The study revealed “strong evidence that environmental benefits and burdens are not equitably shared among the region’s racial and ethnic groups.” Risks “associated with the planet’s warming climate grow increasingly pronounced. With little discretionary income for such luxuries as air conditioning and a preponderance of medical conditions exacerbated by extreme heat, many neighborhoods of color face growing vulnerabilities to heat-related health risks. Such concerns, along with additional hazards posed by climate change, can be expected to increase over time,” the study said.
|
|
However, the study’s findings were mixed. In other cases, certain longstanding environmental problems have faded in significance. “In the case of industrial emissions, for example, disproportionately high toxic emissions in mostly Black and Hispanic Milwaukee neighborhoods as recently as 1990 have dropped significantly as manufacturing has left these areas during the past three decades.”
Climate Change and Environmental Amenities
The study examined where shade trees are located and the implications of dramatically unequal tree canopy coverage, as well as the size and location of public parks and green space.
Trees are especially important in urban areas for the multiple roles they serve. In flood prone areas, trees help to intercept and absorb water, reducing water on impervious surfaces and stabilizing soils. For the Milwaukee area, this is especially relevant since the region’s natural floodplains (such as creeks, underground streams and wetlands) often have been replaced by asphalt and concrete, leaving areas more susceptible to flooding, especially during extreme rain events.
Other studies have found that “urban tree canopy cover provides one of the most important defenses against heat islands and heat-related illnesses by lowering ambient temperatures by nearly 10 degrees.” Researchers also have found trees to be associated with varied health benefits, including reduced air pollution, reduced incidence of cardiovascular disease and respiratory illness, and increased opportunity for physical activity.
In terms of park space, the study found that “a community area’s overall park space … is the superior measure of park access. A one- or two-square-block municipal park is not the equivalent of a 200-acre county park with hiking trails and bike paths. The significant advantage that residents of mostly white and higher income census tracts enjoy in…access to overall park space comes in addition to their advantages in tree canopy coverage.”
Here are some of the study’s key findings about environmental amenities:
- On average, predominantly white census tracts have 221 square meters of tree canopy coverage per person, while mostly Black tracts have 110 square meters and mostly Hispanic tracts have just 64.
- Census tracts that are predominantly white average 250 acres of park space, while those that are mainly Black average 140 acres and those that are chiefly Hispanic average just 91 acres.
- Low-poverty tracts (representing less than 10 percent of residents) have more than three times as much park space as census tracts with the highest rates of poverty (representing more than 30 percent of residents).
- City of Milwaukee temperature readings indicate that summer temperatures for individual census tracts may vary by as much as 10 degrees. In temperature data collected in July 2022, 17 of the city’s 25 hottest census tracts were predominantly Black or Hispanic. Eighteen of the city’s 25 coolest census tracts were predominantly white. Compared with the coolest census tracts, the 25 hottest tracts have household incomes of $20,000 less and poverty rates more than double those of the coolest tracts.
The study revealed other key findings:
Housing and Lead Exposure
- The percentage of Milwaukee area children testing positive for lead has declined significantly since the 1990s. However, the percentage of Black children testing positive today is five times higher than that of white children, while the percentage of Hispanic children is three times higher.
- Census tracts that are predominantly Black or Latino have significant concentrations of older rental housing in which owners are less likely to have undertaken lead-abatement measures.
- Predominantly Hispanic census tracts contain 13 percent of the city of Milwaukee’s housing units, but 24 percent of the share of all housing units with lead service lines. White census tracts contain 41 percent of housing units, but only 34 percent of units with lead service lines.
Industrial Pollution
- Toxic chemical releases have declined significantly across the region since 1990. In 1990, the 50 most adversely impacted census tracts had release levels nearly 15 times higher than those in 2020.
- In 1990, the largest concentrations of the region’s highest-risk industrial pollutants were located chiefly in or adjacent to the City of Milwaukee. By 2020, Milwaukee census tracts that had previously been hot spots of toxicity concentrations were testing at levels below those of portions of Waukesha County and south Milwaukee County.
- In 1990, 35 of the 50 most adversely impacted census tracts were predominantly non-white. By 2020, predominantly white tracts accounted for 33 of the 50 most impacted tracts.
- Fabricated metal establishments, the region’s largest source of toxic chemical releases, have declined since 1990 in both majority white and majority non-white census tracts, reducing chemical emissions. However, the EPA’s risk scores for fabricated metals are approximately 14 times higher for non-white census tracts as they are for predominantly white tracts.
Motor Vehicle Emissions
- Motor vehicle emissions may pose significant health risks for residents along major highway corridors. Research shows that in many urban areas, non-white and lower-income populations are more likely to live in close proximity to highways than white and higher-income residents. The Milwaukee region does not appear to conform to this pattern.
- Of 74 regional highway segments meeting the Federal Highway Administration’s definition of high-volume segments, 64 run through neighborhood areas that are mostly white.
- Only 14 percent of high-volume highway segments run through residential areas in which residents are mostly non-white.
- Predominantly white residential areas located near highest-volume highway segments are not, for the most part, lower-income. All but two such areas have poverty rates below 20 percent.
- Milwaukee’s pronounced patterns of residential segregation, with few Black residents living in suburban areas where many high-volume highway segments are located, may help explain why Milwaukee differs from other metro areas in which neighborhoods along highway corridors are more likely to be non-white.
Policy Recommendations
The authors said that addressing the environmental inequities identified in their report will not be simple. “However, steps can be taken—some small, others more substantial and longer-term—to begin shifting environmental outcomes in a more equitable direction,” they concluded. They outlined several policy recommendations that could most effectively address some of the key disparities uncovered by their research.
- The State of Wisconsin should consider adopting blood-lead testing requirements for children, particularly for cities where known lead hazards persist.
- The City of Milwaukee should require that owners of rental properties built before 1978 test for the presence of lead-based paint and complete any needed lead abatement before renting a property.
- Public resources should be aligned to ensure that urban greening programs, such as the City of Milwaukee’s “Growing Milwaukee’s Tree Canopy and Community Resilience” program have ongoing support.
- City and county officials should consider using targeted incentives such as developer tax credits, property tax abatements, or density bonuses to encourage the use of green roofs, especially in the city’s hottest locations.
- Heat-response plans should identify and publicize the locations of cooling centers, particularly in communities with the highest heat-related health risks. Orienting transit routes to maximize the accessibility of vulnerable populations to cooling centers should also be considered.
- The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) should have the authority to independently test for the presence of contaminants when redevelopment is proposed on former industrial sites, without requiring the permission of the current owner, as the law presently states.
- State legislators should ensure that regulators have sufficient funds for effective oversight and enforcement to better ensure that the redevelopment of brownfield properties is carried out in ways that do not pose unacceptable risks to public health.
- Investing state and federal infrastructure funds in the expansion of highways without parallel efforts to improve public transit is an unsustainable strategy that will ultimately worsen the region’s already significant air-quality problems. State and regional transportation planners should proactively identify opportunities for major investments in public transit so that when funds become available plans are already in place.
- Noice-reduction walls and vegetation along highway corridors, commonly built to mute noise from passing vehicles, can also reduce exposure to vehicle emissions for populations downwind from highways. City and county officials should work with state and federal transportation officials on the I-94 East-West rebuilding project to place noise barriers or densely planted trees and shrubs in areas of high residential density to reduce air pollution.
Going Forward
This study follows a long line of applied studies produced by the CED examining various issues confronting Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin, including labor market trends, public transit access, and inner-city poverty, among other issues. Osutei said, “A key aspect of our mission is to provide data and analysis that can be used by decision-makers and stakeholders in the process of developing solutions to the region’s policy problems.
For the complete CED report, visit:
