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Many research studies have examined if hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposalfacilities (TSDFs) tend to be located where people are disproportionately minority, low-income, and politically inactive. This article focuses on whether variables representing potential neighborhood activism were related to where new TSDFs located during the 1990s. My analyses demonstrated that there is no consistent, substantial evidence that the demographic characteristics of neighborhoods around new TSDFs affected their location decisions. The overall composition of these neighborhoods indicates that there are disproportionately high concentrations of minority and lowincome people around these TSDFs and disproportionatelyfewer people who were more likely to be politically active and concerned about new TSDFs. The skew towards more minorities was overwhelmingly due, however, to a relatively small number of TSDFs in heavily populated neighborhoods with high minority proportions. Over the last decade, concern has grown about the impact of pollution on particular population groups. Some people claim that minority and/or lowincome people bear disproportionately adverse health and environmental effects from pollution (Austin & Schill, 1991; Bullard, 1994). This belief produced the "environmental equity" movement for the fair treatment of people of all races, incomes, and cultures in developing, implementing, and enforcing environmental laws and policies. The environmental equity movement emerged in the early 1980s

The state has the power both to enable local communities to regulate land usage, as well as to override local jurisdictions' zoning policies. In Massachusetts, two pieces of legislation have empowered the state to override local land use control for the purpose of constructing two types of facilities: low and moderte income housing and hazardous waste treatment facilities. Both initiatives have stimulated considerable debate and controversy. This paper provides a framework or “test” for understanding the relative appropriateness of state overrides in general. In addition, the two Massachusetts case are discussed and analyzed according to these criteria.