On the dichotomy between housing justice and environmental justice

This article challenges the dominant framing of U.S. urban policy that forces a choice between housing production and environmental safety. I argue that this dichotomy is not pragmatic but ideological—an artifact of neoliberal racial capitalism and the financialization of housing that legitimizes continued harm inflicted on marginalized communities. Drawing on fieldwork at the Jordan Downs public housing projects in Los Angeles, along with comparative cases from Flint, San Francisco, and East Chicago, I show how urgency is mobilized for capital while environmental injustice is imposed on residents. The housing–environment trade-off functions as a technology of governance, encouraging marginalized communities to expect less and accept harm as inevitable. Against this fatalism, I contend that housing justice and environmental justice are inseparable, requiring the reclamation of deeply affordable, environmentally safe housing as a public good beyond capitalist profit imperatives.