Titled “The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden,” the book by University of Minnesota professors David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park was published in September by NYU Press.
The authors spent 10 years studying the haves and have-nots of Aspen. They concluded that the rich and mostly white ruling class here has used its economic and political power to gain exclusive access to the environmental amenities the area offers, at the expense of immigrants who work as landscapers, housekeepers and line cooks.
They define the phenomenon as “environmental privilege.” They argue it is similar to the better-known practice of “environmental racism,” where minority neighborhoods are burdened — by governments and other powers that be — with toxic waste dumps, power plants and other potentially dangerous pollution centers.
“The case of Aspen,” the authors write in their introduction, “illustrates the importance of understanding poverty and environmental inequality by getting out of the ghetto and into places where racial and economic privilege are enjoyed. That certain communities face greater environmental harm is indeed a social problem, but the accompanying social problem is that others benefit from this harm through environmental privilege.”
(Andrew Travers)
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"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
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