The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Cha

Taylor traces the progression of several major thrusts in urban environmental activism, including the alleviation of poverty; sanitary reform and public health; safe, affordable, and adequate housing; parks, playgrounds, and open space; occupational health and safety; consumer protection (food and product safety); and land use and urban planning. At the same time, she presents a historical analysis of the ways race, class, and gender shaped experiences and perceptions of the environment as well as environmental activism and the construction of environmental discourses. Throughout her analysis, Taylor illuminates connections between the social and environmental conflicts of the past and those of the present. She describes the displacement of people of color for the production of natural open space for the white and wealthy, the close proximity between garbage and communities of color in early America, the cozy relationship between middle-class environmentalists and the business community, and the continuous resistance against environmental inequalities on the part of ordinary residents from marginal communities.

• Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area (Spectre)
• Humanscape: Environments for People
• The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution
• Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality, Third Edition
• Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility
• The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
• Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Jacobin)
• Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
• A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind