In Chicago, your zip code still determines your lifespan. My southeast neighbors die younger than those who live a few miles upstream from the lakeshore. A new law in Illinois finally forces the state to address one of its biggest reasons.
The gap is staggering. Depending on where you live, life expectancy in this city can vary by as much as 20 years. From the late 80s in the affluent lakeside areas to the 60s in the least invested areas where polluting factories are allowed to concentrate.
Even in the same city, the odds of growing old are completely different.
Last week, the Illinois General Assembly finally took action to change that system. Now on Gov. Pritzker’s desk, legislation has been passed that would require the state to weigh the contamination a community already has before approving any more. If this bill becomes law, we would have to consider the pollution load in my neighborhood before bringing in new facilities on top of the 200 existing industrial facilities.
Every facility increases the health threat. The accumulation of pollutants creates a dangerous environment and creates a 20-year gap in our life expectancy.
This legislation is a step toward dismantling the redlining that has turned my region into a victim zone for toxic industries, and Mr. Pritzker should not hesitate to sign it.
I grew up in the shadow of industry. It’s a working-class community of color where smokestacks and chemical plants always seem to be there. When we think about our children’s future, we must consider the risks of children playing in parks and how we can protect them from the air they breathe.
None of this is abstract to me. I learned how that burden stacks up during the fiercest environmental justice fight of my life.
Almost 10 years ago, a giant metal shredder called General Iron left an gentrifying corner of Lincoln Park and moved into my neighborhood. It’s too dirty a business for wealthy people on the North Side to move into an area that already has the heaviest pollution burden in the city. Neighbors said no. Some people went on a hunger strike for nearly 30 days to get the city’s opinion.
we won. Permission denied. But the system that tried to bring General Iron into our neighborhoods remains in place.
Credit: passigatti/Big Stock Photo
Now, while the state moves forward, Chicago’s Hazel Johnson Cumulative Impact Ordinance, named after the Southeast Side activist known as the mother of the environmental justice movement, is stalled in the City Council, hampered by the same old industry talking points we’ve heard for years.
Chicago’s elected leaders, the Alder People, continue to say protecting health will hurt jobs, growth and business. That argument quietly treats our lungs and our futures as a cost of doing business. It requires people living next to pollution to continue to subsidize the interests of others with their own health.
This logic should sound familiar, because this isn’t just a stall tactic by the city council. This is the same stance we see from federal agencies. The same administration that moved to erase the scientific findings that underpin our clean air protections is now giving polluters exemptions from the law. The worldview is the same, just the stage is bigger. The message is that community health is an acceptable price to pay, and those who pay that price are expected to remain silent.
I don’t support it and neither should Springfield or City Hall. Growth that shortens your lifespan is not growth. Pritzker should sign this legislation and treat it like a floor, not a ceiling. And the City Council needs to stop hiding behind the arguments that federal agencies have tolerated for years and the Trump administration’s policy decisions.
My son did not choose the zip code he was born in. That shouldn’t determine his longevity. For generations in my neighborhood, we have been told that our health is negotiable. We will finally move from pollution to progress by refusing to accept that clean air is a privilege granted by zip code, and that some regions exist to absorb what others refuse to endure.
