Environmental Justice is a movement that focuses on unequal distribution and accessibility of resources, and exclusion from community facilities because of poverty, prejudice, race, income, or other marginal status. As landscape architects, we frequently (knowingly or unknowingly) design spaces that sustain this unequal treatment. To work for justice, we must educate ourselves on the social impact of what we do.

I chose the Environmental Justice professional practice network because the social impact of design reverberates, affecting people and communities for years to come. My possible senior project location is the Sidaway Bridge in the Kinsman neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland has a bitter history with both racial conflicts and segregation, and environmental problems from the heavy industry there. As a culturally-focused project, I’d like to have an understanding of what this community is grappling with and how one project could get the wheels of change turning. Identifying how people in the Kinsman neighborhood have been marginalized will help me work to create a design that helps remedy and acknowledges the truth of our past. 

One resource ASLA’s Environmental justice professional practice network led me to was an EPA tool called ejscreen (https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen). It can help identify common environmental justice factors (including demographics and and environmental factors). They will also notify you if any site near your selected location or block group is reporting to the EPA (such as superfund sites or hazardous waste treatment). While ejscreen should not be used for decision making or to label any place as an ‘environmental justice site’, it provides a tool for any person or agency to see the vulnerability of a community. I tried putting the exact location for the Sidaway Bridge and got a PDF report. It uses GIS software and census block group data, so it is a good tool for looking at a comprehensive view of a focus area, and can give leads to follow for future research.