This past week, the University of Wisconsin Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Office of Sustainability sponsored the Weston Roundtable.
Made possible by donations from Roy F. Weston, a University of Wisconsin alumnus, the Weston Roundtable lecture series offers interactive discussions that promote an understanding of sustainability science, engineering and policy. With past lectures on “How Hard Can it Rain,” “The Politics and Governance of Food System Transformation,” among others, the Weston Roundtable series offers the UW community an opportunity to learn more about many pressing scientific and political issues.
At the most recent event, UW professor of real estate and urban land economics Christopher Timmins discussed the recent results of his research on housing discrimination focused on how activities steer certain groups into low-opportunity neighborhoods.
Covering key topics of environmental justice, the role of housing markets and current discrimination implications, Timmins went into detail about factors that lead to these disparities.
Timmins specifically described the relationship of pollution exposure to housing markets and explained how the impacts of environmental justice raise questions on why specific groups are disproportionately affected.
Timmins emphasized why these questions are so important.
“You can’t really fix these problems if you do not understand why they are happening,” Timmins said.
Timmins first introduced the topic of environmental justice. Environmental justice refers to the fair treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of demographic differences, with respect to environmental regulations and policies, Timmins said.
Timmins discussed a series of research studies, the Housing Discrimination Studies, which specifically examine racial and other discriminations within the housing market. Timmins examined one specific study on the impact of recommendations and other factors that play into housing audits for both white and non-white communities.
He explained that after a specific study conducted in Chicago, the African American tester was offered houses in areas with 23 more assaults than the white tester, a statistically significant finding Timmins said. Timmins offered numerous other instances and studies that displayed similar results, and concluded by raising questions about the ethics of housing markets and justice in general.
“The bigger picture that I want to get across [today] … is how we incorporate and bring those kinds of constraints, in particular, discrimination in housing markets, to how we should think people react to pollution, and what they are exposed to,” Timmins said.
