The hazardous waste beneath us: sociologists unearth a buried problem

A new book explores how, for decades, businesses of all sizes have been burying hazardous waste all over cities

Every day, in cities across the country, businesses open up, close down, or move to new locations. And every day, in those very same cities, people move in and people move out. A once-industrial neighborhood is reinvented as a trendy hot spot populated by new restaurants and young professionals in search of loft apartments; a formerly low-income neighborhood of modest bungalows is gradually taken over by gentrifying upper-income young families.