Mega freight generators in my backyard: A longitudinal study of environmental justice in warehousing location

Environmental impacts of warehousing activities have attracted increasing attention from the governments, the public and the academia. While a few studies have confirmed the cross-sectional spatial coincidence between warehousing facilities and minority population, little is known about the causal relationship behind the co-location pattern. Using data of the Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area in 2000–2010, this paper estimates a two-equation simultaneous model of the location choices of warehousing facilities and the minority population. Results show that, all else equal, changes in the percentage share of minorities significantly and positively affect the changes in warehousing activity density during the same period, but not vice versa. Thus, the environmental justice problem in warehousing location is found to be solely from the disproportionate siting of warehouses in minority-dominated areas, rather than from the movement of minority population towards warehousing. Furthermore, the variants of the model suggest that contrary to Latinos and Asians, the inflow of Blacks into a neighborhood would not lead to an increase in warehousing activities. And a neighborhood with more ethnic churning would be more likely under the pressure of warehousing expansion. The government and the public need to work together to facilitate an effective regulation of warehousing related externalities and a fair distribution of related environmental disamenities.