How Chicago’s Little Village became a hotspot for environmental racism and the fight for equal access to health

The Trump administration’s efforts to block funding and enforcement for environmental justice threaten hard-won progress to reduce toxic pollution in overburdened places. In many communities, residents have worked for decades to improve health through better air, water and soil quality, often with scant help from local officials. Chicago’s Little Village exemplifies that environmental justice story.

Environmental racism is typically defined as exposing marginalized communities to more environmental and public health hazards, often with help from inequitable zoning laws and longstanding economic disparities. The result is that polluting industries are more likely to locate in predominantly low-income areas with large minority populations.

Continuous exposure to harmful pollutants, such as particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, can worsen asthma, weaken the immune system, exacerbate chronic conditions and significantly increase the risk of the following: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer, stroke, neonatal disorders, and Type 2 diabetes.

Data visualization: Total population in Little Village, Chicago is 80,463. 82% of its residents are Hispanic, followed by 14% Black, 4% White, and less than 1% Other. The median household income is $31,500, almost $20,000 less than Chicago’s median household income. 1 in 5 employed residents work in production. Production workers primarily labor in industrial settings and face a higher risk of exposure to toxic chemicals.

Timeline:

1. Little Village, located on Chicago’s Southwest Side, has been an industrial hub and a key entry point for Latino immigrants, especially from Mexico, to the Midwest. Its residents—over 90 percent people of color—breathe air polluted by nearby factories, truck traffic and other industrial activity.

2. 1994: After raising concerns about toxic chemical exposure during a school renovation, Little Village parents unite to form the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). The group pushes government agencies to reduce industrial pollution instead of approving permits that allow even more. LVEJO becomes a central figure in multiple landmark cases on environmental justice.

3. 2002: A Harvard School of Public Health study links the pollution from the Fisk and Crawford coal plants—two massive polluters on Chicago’s Southwest Side—to asthma attacks, ER visits and dozens of premature deaths each year. The findings underscore the health risks residents in Little Village and surrounding communities face and the urgent need to reduce toxic emissions.

4. 2012: After a decade-long battle led by LVEJO and community activists, the Fisk and Crawford coal plants are permanently shut down. The victory marks a turning point in grassroots environmental justice.

5. 2014: After a 15-year effort by residents and activists at LVEJO to clean up a contaminated industrial property, the Chicago Park District opens La Villita Park, a 21-acre open space transforming what had been a manufacturing site for an asphalt roofing company. The park becomes the largest in a major city to be converted from a U.S. EPA Superfund site. It also doubles the open, green spaces in the neighborhood.

6. In April 2020, contractors hired by Hilco Redevelopment Partners use explosives to demolish the Crawford Power Plant, blanketing Little Village in a dense cloud of dust and debris in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2024, a federal judge approves a $12.25 million settlement in a class action lawsuit filed by outraged residents over the demolition.

7. In August 2021, Target opens a massive warehouse on the former Crawford site. In 2023, Hilco constructs a logistics hub for trucks hauling goods to and from the retailer’s warehouse. According to data from the Chicago Truck Data Portal, Little Village deals with increasing diesel emissions and pollutants from industrial vehicles that crowd the area.

Data visualization: Formaldehyde, which causes more cancer than any other air pollutant, contaminates outdoor air mainly through emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities and by forming in the atmosphere from other chemicals. The formaldehyde cancer risk near Little Village is 1 in 70,000 residents, significantly higher than EPA’s set goal to keep formaldehyde cancer risk under 1 in 1,000,000.

Source: LVEJO, Chicago Truck Data Portal, Google Earth, Illinois Environmental Council, Encyclopedia of Chicago, Statistical Atlas of the United States, ProPublica, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Research, design and illustration by Bhabna Banerjee.