Scholars have recognized a climate gap, wherein poor communities face disproportionate impacts of climate change. Others have noted that climate change and economic globalization may mutually affect a region or social group, leading to double exposure. This paper investigates how current and changing patterns of neighborhood demographics are associated with extreme heat in the border city of Juárez, Mexico. Many Juárez neighborhoods are at-risk to triple exposures, in which residents suffer due to the conjoined effects of the global recession, drug war violence, and extreme heat. Due to impacts of the recession on maquiladora employment and the explosion of drug violence (since 2008), over 75% of neighborhoods experienced decreasing population density between 2000 and 2010 and the average neighborhood saw a 40% increase in the proportion of older adults. Neighborhoods with greater drops in population density and increases in the proportion of older residents over the decade are at significantly higher risk to extreme heat, as are neighborhoods with lower population density and lower levels of education. In this context, triple exposures are associated with a climate gap that most endangers lower socioeconomic status and increasingly older aged populations remaining in neighborhoods from which high proportions of residents have departed.
Research in the Global North (e.g., US, Europe) has revealed robust patterns of environmental injustice whereby low income and minority residents face exposure to industrial hazards in their neighborhoods. A small body of research suggests that patterns of environmental injustice may diverge between the Global North and South due to differing urban development trajectories. This study uses quantitative environmental justice methods to examine spatial relationships between residential socio-demographics and industrial parks in Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico using 2010 census data for Tijuana's 401 neighborhoods and municipality-provided locations of industrial parks in the city. Results of spatial lag regression models reveal that formal development is significantly associated with industrial park density, and it accounts for the significant effect of higher socioeconomic status (measured using mean education) on greater industrial density. Higher proportions of female-headed households are also significantly associated with industrial park density, while higher proportions of children and recent migrants are not. The formal development findings align with other studies in Mexico and point to the importance of urban development trajectories in shaping patterns of environmental injustice. The risks for female-headed households are novel in the Mexican context. One potential explanation is that women factory workers live near their places of employment. A second, albeit counterintuitive explanation, is the relative economic advantage experienced by female-headed households in Mexico.
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