Poverty rates are 50 percent higher in the Bronx than the city average, and the Bronx is home to the poorest U.S. The median household income in the Bronx is less than half that of Manhattan, in part a consequence of a racist housing policy called redlining. These factors create a pocket of land that’s buffered from the immense wealth nearby, with measurably poorer air quality. Some trucks deliver goods to consumers thousands of miles away. Residents bear the burden of traffic pollution for a distribution chain that extends across the country.Īround 57 percent of trucks that visit the Hunts Point meat and produce markets come from outside the city, according to a Department of Transportation study. It’s ringed and bisected by highways and blanketed in mixed-use industrial zones, including the massive Hunts Point Distribution Center and two power plants, which contribute to high levels of particle pollution. The Bronx lies north of Manhattan ( home to dozens of the Forbes 400 wealthiest people), and south of Scarsdale, the second-richest neighborhood in the United States. Here, an autoshop shares a wall with a residence. While the rest of New York City became more residential and commercial, the Bronx increased industrial zoning. Share on Pinterest Zoning and the organization of neighborhoods in the Bronx contributes to poor asthma rates. To understand why this racial disparity exists, you need to look at where affected communities live. While roughly 6.4 percent of white children have received an asthma diagnosis in the United States, the likelihood of receiving an asthma diagnosis rises to 10.0 percent for non-Mexican Hispanic children and to 13.5 percent for Black children, according to CDC data. Socioeconomic status is the strongest indicator for the condition on the neighborhood level, with rates rising among people living below the poverty level, entwined with other health disparities.Īsthma disproportionately affects communities of color. Ledee, now 30 and a climate model analyst, is just one of 24.7 million people who live with asthma in the United States. “Asthma for me has been a lifelong battle,” she says. “OK, breathe with me, breathe with me,” she recalls her father saying as he held her hands up.Ĭars and tractor trailers sped above on the complicated freeway junction. Ledee’s parents rushed over with her albuterol inhaler, and she took a few puffs. Knowing she had asthma, he interrupted the soccer game and pulled her to the side. Just a few moments earlier, her coach saw her grabbing at her chest as she ran up and down the field. Share on Pinterest Photography by Melissa Bunni Elianĭown below the elevated I-678, I-278, I-295, and I-95 highways in the Bronx, Julia Ledee, then 8 years old, sat on a metal bench on the sidelines of the Will Cintron Soccer Fields trying to breathe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |