PSTC | Postdoctoral Research Associate

Rachel’s primary research agenda examines connections between various forms of environmental (in)justice and processes of urban change. Their current research project explores the environmental legacy of historic redlining and residential segregation, paying special attention to how urban environmental injustice is bound up in the history of housing inequality. This work applies a critical environmental justice lens to interconnected ecological and urban crises by deepening our understanding of the spatial and temporal scales of environmental justice struggles. Their other work explores transformative approaches to environmental justice through mutual aid networks and coalition building.

Selected Publications:
Patrick Greiner and Rachel G McKane. “Does Racism have Inertia? A Study of Historic Redlining’s Impact on Present-Day Associations between Development and Air Pollution in U.S. Cities.”
Forthcoming, Environmental Research Letters
Rachel G McKane and David J. Hess. 2021. “Ridesourcing and Urban Inequality in Chicago: Connecting Mobility Disparities to Unequal Development and Gentrification.” Environment and Planning
A. DOI:10.1177/0308518X211047872
David J. Hess, Rachel G McKane, and Kaelee Belletto. 2021. “Advocating a Just Transition: Civil Society and Industrial Change in a Carbon-Intensive Region.” Energy Research and Social Science.
DOI:10.1016/j.erss.2021.102004
David J. Hess, Rachel McKane, and Caroline Pietrzyk. 2021. “End of the Line: environmental justice, energy justice, and opposition to power lines.” Environmental Politics.
DOI:10.1080/09644016.2021.1952799

Scholarly Interests

Environmental justice, political economy, built environment, spatial inequality, mutual aid, quantitative methods