Social class, race, and toxic releases in American counties, 1995

This article, using data on 2,083 counties in 1995, tests the environmental racism/classism hypotheses and concludes that both have merit, however, specific findings demonstrate that the relationships are more complex than heretofore reported. Class and race relationships are conditional: while high social class reduces the level of toxic releases, it does so by moderating the relationship between fiscal capacity, pollution potential and this environmental harm. Further, while toxic releases increase as a function of the Black population, this relationship is stronger in the Sunbelt. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.