Environmental privilege
Environmental privilege is a concept in environmental sociology, referring to the ability of privileged groups to keep environmental amenities for themselves and deny them to less privileged groups. More broadly, it refers to the ability of privileged groups to keep an exclusive grip on the advantages of "social place," including non-ecological amenities. It has been characterized as "the other side of the coin" from environmental racism. Like other forms of racial privilege, it does not depend on personal racism, but rather structural racism.
The concept of environmental privilege first developed from the historical scholarship of Dorceta Taylor, who led the shift in scholarship on environmental racism away from consideration of environmental disadvantage in isolation, and toward a more holistic approach that accounted for the discriminatory effects of restrictive zoning.
Environmental privilege is often used in critiques of "green gentrification", where environmental amenities such as urban agriculture cater largely to white or otherwise privileged urban groups. It has proven particularly illuminating in understanding the correlation between whiteness and participation in farmer's markets.
