Warehouses burden low-income, minority communities in Illinois; local organizers push back
The e-commerce industry in the United States has grown nearly $157 million from 2023 to 2024, creating jobs and boosting the economy. But this boom has not been without adverse effects; and in Illinois, the communities most affected are speaking out.
Illinois Warehouse Boom is a 2024 report published by the Environmental Defense Fund. It details the impacts that warehouses in Illinois – and the trucks that ship their goods– have on the neighborhoods in which they’re located.
“What we wanted to accomplish with this report was accessibility. A lot of people in these communities know that warehouse and trucking pollution are problems, but they don’t know exactly how they’re being affected,” Dany Robles, Legislative Director of the Illinois Environmental Council, said.
With more consumers shopping online than ever before, many companies require an increased number of warehouses to store their products prior to distribution. This demand has led to a surge in warehouse construction, and the locations for these facilities are strategic.
Warehouses are often built in areas zoned for industrial use, which equate to cheap land. Historically discriminatory practices like redlining– the systematic denial of services such as mortgages and insurance loans to residents based on their race or ethnicity– lead to construction in low- to medium-income minority neighborhoods.
Sam Becker served as Project Manager for the report. They said an obstacle in their team’s research was the fact that warehouse location information is often only available in private databases, which can be expensive to access.
For the average person, this data is out of reach.
“Without transparency, communities cannot understand the level of threat to which they're being exposed. There's currently a lack of transparency around warehouse locations across the state,” Becker said.
Not only are these facilities disproportionately located in underserved areas, but these communities can experience negative health impacts at higher rates.
Warehouse and transportation pollutants, like Nitrogen Dioxide, are associated with asthma, cardiovascular disease, premature death and other life-threatening conditions.
They also have effects on the environment. When warehouses are built near watersheds or streams, impervious surfaces like parking lots can lead to increased stormwater runoff and overwhelm waterways. The result is flooding and contamination by pollutants in local ecosystems and even homeowners’ yards.
Cook County, Illinois, is one of 10 counties that house 20% of all the warehouses in the United States. Cook County has a poverty rate 2% higher than the national average, and Black and Latino/Hispanic residents make up nearly half of its population.
Black and Latino/Hispanic individuals also counted for 85% of warehouse workers in the state. The Warehouse Boom report says that these factors place an “outsized health burden” on these workers.
“Is there a price that you put on a human life? That’s what we’re asking these companies. Because that is really what we're hearing back from them, that they're more concerned about being able to sell products than the lives that are affected by the people around those communities,” Robles said.
Senator Javier Loera Cervantes serves the Illinois 1st Legislative District. He has been outspoken against heavy truck traffic and pollution in his district.
Cervantes recently attended a town hall hosted in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund, Illinois Environmental Council, Neighbors for Environmental Justice and Warehouse Workers Justice. The groups discussed possible policy solutions to warehouse pollution in Cook County.
He said that making an effort to engage with his district can help show constituents that their concerns are being heard.
“When constituents are familiar with the individuals who represent them, it creates a space for conversations that couldn’t happen otherwise,” Cervantes said. “They need to know that we are fighting the good fight in their name.”
And many of them are taking advantage of opportunities to connect. Jordan Copeland is a Cook County resident living in Matteson, Illinois. Four blocks from her home is an Amazon fulfillment center.
She said truck traffic in and out of her neighborhood is constant, and has greatly increased since 2020. She has emailed representatives about the traffic in the past, but says progress has been slow.
“I know that there are local efforts being made to regulate the traffic and keep more warehouses from being built near me, but I just haven’t seen many results. I have confidence in local leaders, but I just wish existing policy was stricter,” Copeland said.
Becker said that as long as representatives and community organizers address these issues with their neighbors, effective legislation can and will be passed.
“If you want to pass a policy that addresses a particular disparity, you have to work with people who are caught in the cross hairs of those issues,” Becker said. “We need to be engaging communities that are most impacted by warehouse build out and truck pollution, because their insight is what makes a good policy.”
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