A post-pandemic boom in e-commerce correlated with statewide health inequities that are hitting low-income communities the hardest, the report found. “The reason why a lot of these warehouses are placed where they are is based on histories of redlining,” its author told City Limits.
A new report published by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) details how rapid growth in warehouses and delivery truck trips across New York has increased fossil fuel emissions over the last five years—pollution that’s hitting lower-income communities of color the hardest.
Shifts in supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a massive expansion of warehouses, often used as last-mile logistics facilities for e-commerce, across the country. In New York State, EDF estimated nearly 2,900 warehouses—occupying 355 million square feet, or over 6,100 standard football fields—generate approximately 260,000 truck trips per day. Around a fifth of these warehouses and truck trips are in the New York City region.
Adverse health impacts from pollutants released from diesel truck trips are unevenly distributed across demographic groups, EDF’s analysis suggests. In New York City, low-income populations are 1.2 times more likely to live within half a mile of a warehouse, and 75 percent of warehouses are located within “disadvantaged communities“—census tracts that are already disproportionately burdened by climate change, as defined in state law…