Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Zoe Pettigrew. I am a junior here at FSU and I’m majoring in political science with a minor in economics. I just transferred here in the fall and I'm loving it. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have worked on a research project that has to do with government policy and environmental justice, as both of these are important topics to me. I hope to work in government in the future and write policies just like, but better than, the one I researched.

Two Sides of Justice: Balancing between Environmental and Economic Justice for Sustainable Communities

Abstract

In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have established policies in efforts to maintain the three pillars of sustainability: economic development, environmental protection, and social equity for sustainable development. However, these policies are often unsuccessful in this mission as they usually take an incomprehensive approach and do not address all pillars. With the intention of creating improved policies, this study aims to explore the compatibility of economic and environmental justice in resurging urban environments through the examination of zoning programs. Specifically, zoning programs for economic development and how they disproportionately affect environmental and health outcomes of marginalized communities are examined. To accomplish this, the study will construct a nationwide dataset to capture a marginalized community development program, research community-level environmental outcomes and demographic information from 2016 to 2019, and employ the difference-in-differences method to empirically test the hypotheses. It is expected that the results will provide evidence that will influence policies through economic development, environmental protection, and social equity for sustainable development.

Keywords: government, zoning programs, sustainability, economic development, environmental justice