Environmental justice is often viewed as an access point for disadvantaged communities to engage the policy process to prevent their exploitation by more established policy players. The mostly untested assumption of it, however, is that communities have accurate perceptions of the distribution of environmental harms. This study tests this assumption with data on San Francisco's wastewater system. Survey data from residents were coupled with operational data on various wastewater system problems. When compared, these data suggest that people's perceptions of the distribution of environmental harms do not match empirical measures of it. Instead, perceptions of neighborhoods' exposures were more associated with socio‐economic and physical characteristics of the neighborhoods than their actual exposures. In essence, perceptions of environmental justice resembled social equity issues more than environmental equity issues. These findings have implications for the changing roles of government agencies and the public in their efforts to achieve environmental justice and sustainable development. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
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