In Chicago, your ZIP code still decides how long you live. My neighbors on the Southeast Side die younger than people who live a few miles up the lakefront. A new Illinois law finally forces the state to address one of the biggest reasons why.
The gap is staggering. Depending on your neighborhood, life expectancy in this city swings by two decades – from the high 80s in the wealthy lakefront neighborhoods to the 60s in the most disinvested communities, where polluting factories are allowed to concentrate.
Same city, completely different odds of growing old.
Last week, the Illinois General Assembly finally acted to change that system. It passed a law – now on Governor Pritzker’s desk – requiring the state to weigh the pollution a community already carries before approving more. If this bill becomes law, the pollution burden in my neighborhood would have to be taken into account before another new facility is imposed alongside the 200 existing industrial facilities.
Every single facility adds a health threat. The accumulation of polluters creates a dangerous environment and a twenty-year gap in our life expectancy.
This law is a step toward dismantling the redlining that made neighborhoods like mine into sacrifice zones for toxic industry, and Pritzker should sign it without hesitation.
