When it comes to exposure to hazardous waste, Chicago is a tale of two cities divided by color and income.

On the South Side, neighborhoods like Roseland, Englewood, and Riverdale are over 95 percent black. Across the Windy City, fewer than one in five households live below the poverty line, but eight of nine communities on the West Side – many of which contain Superfund sites – exceed that level. The concentration of toxic risk suggests that Chicago continues to fail to live up to a fundamental principle of environmental justice: a person’s race or income level should not increase their likelihood of living near hazardous waste. With more than half of the city’s Superfund sites on the South Side and more than a third on the West Side, maybe this injustice can be best addressed if we call it by its true name: environmental racism.

Read more at The Chicago Reporter