‘Whose Movement Is It?‘, a series co-produced by NPQ and the Environmental Justice Oral History Project, is a call to action for those at the forefront of environmental justice decision-making, drawing on insights, hopes, and visions for the future from some of the foundational women organizers of the environmental justice movement.
The United States used to spend an average of about three billion dollars in weather disasters per year. Over the last five years, that average has climbed to 18 billion annually, with 28 billion in 2023 alone. Cities are at the forefront of the destruction, facing more environmental pressure than they’ve seen in the last 50 years. In the past year, floods have shut down subways and highways in New York, heat waves have overwhelmed power grids in Austin, and wildfires in Los Angeles have choked entire regions with smoke and heat; all issues that have significant implications for local infrastructure.
Environmental justice depends on shifting that power upstream by making community input part of decision-making, rather than asking them to react after the fact.
State and local governments account for roughly 75 percent of public infrastructure spending in the United States, and zoning authority largely rests with municipalities. Cities decide where housing is built, where industry operates, where waste facilities are placed, and which neighborhoods receive flood protection or transit expansion. With this in mind, and in the face of newer and harsher climate disasters, cities will increasingly need to use their authority to adapt to an ever-changing future of climate change, a responsibility that carries with it the weight of decades of infrastructural inequity. This also means cities will need to do a better job of centering community voices and input in their processes, from the start rather than as an afterthought or checkbox at the end of decision-making.
Where Climate-Preparedness, Community Input and Development Clash
The agencies responsible for decades of flood-vulnerable growth are now deciding how to protect against it. In Houston, the same planning commission that approved dense residential development in flood-prone corridors also oversees the city’s 2017 post-Hurricane Harvey resilience investments. The situations are similar in cities like Charleston, South Carolina—now tasked with implementing resilience strategies like the Dutch Dialogues Charleston as a citywide flood mitigation effort. New Orleans and other low-lying coastline parishes in Louisiana, once the trail of plantation slavery, are now serving as a pathway for climate disaster, and so many more. Localities are being forced to carry the responsibility of responding to growing environmental strain while building resilience to ever-worsening climate disasters while guiding economic and infrastructural growth. This dual responsibility can force cities to make high-stakes choices in the blink of an eye, a process that often contradicts the participatory planning needs of the communities they serve. When the focus is on expediency— how fast can debris be cleared, how quickly can funds be distributed, how quickly can new housing be built—the communities most affected by these quick choices are left out of the decision-making process.
And when community input is limited to late-stage hearings or short public comment periods, the direction has already been set. Environmental justice depends on shifting that power upstream by making community input part of decision-making, rather than asking them to react after the fact.
When the focus is on expediency—how fast can debris be cleared, how quickly can funds be distributed, how quickly can new housing be built—the communities most affected by these quick choices are left out of the decision-making process.
Historically, the benefits and burdens of economic growth have not been shared evenly; low-income communities and communities of color have faced and continue to face higher exposure to pollution, flooding, and industrial infrastructure, even as cities promote green futures. These decisions have intergenerational effects on air quality, housing stability, property values, and public health outcomes. This can be seen in the Snow Hill neighborhood in Roseboro, NC, where Sampson County’s 1,300-acre municipal solid waste facility, equivalent in size to 990 football fields, is the direct result of rushed and racialized planning. Snow Hill has campaigned for over 50 years against North Carolina’s largest landfill. Residents demanded the County Board of Commissioners address the asbestos and toxic sludge being dumped, reportedly causing shortness of breath and headaches, while water pollution has plummeted residents’ land values. However, the Board sidelined their concerns as they favored the economic benefits of the facility as a funder of local fire and ambulance services.
A very different part of the country, , experienced a very similar problem with missing community participation in what became one of the biggest water crises in the country. Without warning or consultation, and as a cost-cutting measure for the city, Flint residents saw a switch in their water source from Lake Huron to the more corrosive waters from the Flint River. What followed was the corrosion of pipes, seeping lead into drinking water, and resulting in years of poisoning thousands of already vulnerable people.
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As federal funding becomes less consistent amid longstanding environmental harm and new climate threats, the clear path forward for municipal governments is to move from consultation to collaboration, shifting their priorities from developer-driven to community-driven. This is a practice that acknowledges that communities do, in fact, know what’s best for themselves; after all, it is the residents who know best where traffic and pollution are concentrated and where health burdens are the highest.
Municipal governments hold real power over how environmental risk and protection are distributed across neighborhoods, and right now that power matters more than it has in decades.
Self-Determination Across Cities
Across the country, cities like Baltimore are growing and redeveloping under banners such as sustainability and revitalization, doing so with a focus on co-creation and community-ownership. Organizations like Climate Mayors, C40 Cities, and ICLEI are re-committing their infrastructural and economic development towards a green future.
And community-based organizations are more than ready to take up the torch of facilitating those partnerships. In New York City, UPROSE Brooklyn has spent years building climate resilience plans in the Sunset Park neighborhood grounded in residents’ knowledge of the waterfront, the area’s industrial mix, and the community’s vulnerabilities. Those plans have shaped citywide climate policy from the ground up.
Another example we can look to is Minneapolis. The Green Zones program targeted North and South Minneapolis, the neighborhoods carrying the heaviest pollution burdens, and gave residents formal decision-making roles in setting priorities for tree canopy expansion, cleaner transit, and industrial pollution reduction. The city funded community liaisons, translated materials, and held meetings in neighborhood spaces rather than the city hall. And in Portland, OR, the city’s Environmental Justice Action Plan requires city bureaus to consult with frontline communities before finalizing environmental decisions, embedding community review directly into the bureaucratic timeline rather than appending it at the end. These partnerships work because they begin before decisions are made.
Municipal governments hold real power over how environmental risk and protection are distributed across neighborhoods, and right now that power matters more than it has in decades.
With the federal government pulling back from environmental enforcement and climate funding, cities are absorbing responsibilities that used to be shared. Community input must be built into the early design of zoning changes, redevelopment plans, and resilience strategies. Community input is not a procedural nicety; the communities most exposed to environmental harm are also the ones who understand it most intimately. Giving them real power in these decisions is not just the equitable choice. It is the smarter one.
