How explosion of mega warehouses is turning America's heartland into a hellscape, as raging locals say soulless eyesores are ruining their lives
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In the tight-knit community of Bloomington, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, locals have fought for years to protect their land, homes and health against the warehouse boom which is sweeping America.
They have anxiously watched surrounding ranches and farmland become gobbled up by sprawling industrial complexes, home to business behemoths like Amazon.
But it feels like they're fighting a losing battle. Soon, despite overwhelming local opposition, Bloomington's elementary school and hundreds of homes will be demolished to make way for a 213-acre business park, one of the area's biggest warehouse projects to date.
'We thought that through community engagement we could stop this,' said one member of the Concerned Neighbors of Bloomington action group. 'It's an industrial project put in the middle of a neighborhood.'
The saga typifies how the surge in warehouse space across America has come at the expense of local communities which must deal with downsides from truck traffic and pollution to the loss of agricultural land.
In Pittsgrove, New Jersey, activists are fighting to prevent millions of square feet of warehouses being built on swathes of rural farmland
Warehouses next to homes in Fontana, in San Bernardino County, California
Across California's Inland Empire region, the number of warehouses has doubled since 1993 to 4,000 units, covering 1.5billion square feet.
A similar explosion is underway along the East Coast. In one industrial corridor of Pennsylvania and New Jersey which straddles the Delaware River, warehouse space has increased nearly tenfold since 2020 to 51.7 million square feet, according to one analysis.
Much of the growth has happened since covid struck and online shopping boomed during the lockdown, prompting companies like Amazon and Walmart to expand their next-day delivery services.
The largest warehouses can be up to 1.5 million square feet, equivalent to around 26 football fields.
These huge units which dominate the landscape can transform residential and rural areas into buzzing logistical hubs, bringing not only jobs, but also pollution and constant truck traffic.
Swathes of pristine farmland has also been lost to towering warehouses structures which reshape the rural landscape.
In the Inland Empire, opposition to new developments is led by the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.
'Environmental injustices [of warehouse growth] - impacts that disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities - have been ignored', according to the organization.
'This has resulted in exponential growth of warehouse infrastructure and related health problems that impact communities, workers, children, and the elderly, leading to a public health crisis in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.'
Amparo Muñoz, a former policy director with the group, said she started to campaign after an Amazon warehouse was built near to her home in Fontana, a city next to Bloomington, in 2013.
She would take daily walks while pregnant, but started to struggle with her breathing.
Thinking it was allergies, she consulted a doctor who told Muñoz she had developed asthma and said it was because of the poor air quality. Her son was also born with asthma.
Much of the Warehouse boom has happened since covid struck and online shopping boomed, prompting companies like Amazon and Walmart to expand their next-day delivery services
The I-15 Logistics Center under construction in Fontana, California, US, on Saturday, March 18, 2023
'A lot of time, kids wake up with bloody noses on their pillows,' she told the LA Times. 'We have the worst air quality. We have gridlock. We have streets and communities that were never built for global logistics.'
The American Lung Association says San Bernardino County, home to Fontana and Bloomington, has some of the most polluted air in the country.
The recently-approved Bloomington Business Park – which involves demolition of the Walter Zimmerman Elementary School and dozens of homes – was signed off by San Bernardino officials in late 2022.
A replacement school will be rebuilt about a mile away at a new site which will border the warehouse complex. But opponents say the environmental harm of the development poses a major health risk to schoolchildren and families who live nearby.
Developers behind the project insist it is a 'creating an employment base and is an economic driver'.
A 2023 report by the influential Environmental Defense Fund found 15 million people in ten states live within half a mile of a warehouse. The study looked at the ten states where warehouses construction has proliferated.
'Each warehouse generates hundreds, if not thousands, of truck trips every day, and trucks can emit more pollution while idling or traveling at slow speeds than while driving at faster speeds,' the report said.
'Exposure to air pollution from these trucks is linked to a range of health issues, including the risk of developing childhood asthma, heart disease, adverse birth outcomes like premature birth and low birth weight, cognitive decline, and stroke.'
In Shafter, a small California city 175 miles northwest of Bloomington, another battle is brewing over plans to transform hundreds of acres of farmland into warehouse space.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaires behind The Wonderful Company, already own a sprawling distribution center in Shafter.
Now they want to expand to create an international hub and position the county at the forefront of the global shift to online shopping. The move would convert 1,800 acres of the company's Kern County almond groves into additional warehousing space.
The development would transform Shafter from a small town, with a population of just 20,162, into a booming trade hub – and completely reshape the landscape around it.
In Shafter, another small California city 175 miles northwest of Bloomington, another row is brewing over plans to transform hundreds of acres of farmland into warehouse space
Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaires behind The Wonderful Company, want to create an international hub in Kern County
Gustavo Aguirre, assistant director of the Delano-based Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment told the LA Times: 'I understand that company says it will bring jobs. This is true to some extent.
'But it is also true that it's going to bring health and environmental impacts that are going to impact the neighbors who live near the industrial park.'
Across the nation in Philadelphia, several new warehouse projects are taking shape on disused brownfield land – helping developers avoid some of the scrutiny leveled on those in rural areas.
One such plan is to build 14 warehouse buildings at the 1,300-acre Bellwether District in South Philadelphia, which was once home to an oil refinery. The project will create more than 10,000 permanent jobs, according to Hilco Redevelopment Partners.
But new warehousing has also sprung up on rural land in the region, including the Lehigh Valley.
CoStar data reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer shows 64 warehouses were built or under construction in the Lehigh Valley between 2020 and April 2024, covering a total area of 23.5 million square feet.
A further 2.7 million square feet is planned in the Lowhill Township, in Lehigh County.
Campaigners in Lowhill claim that will lead to around 1,300 daily trips by trucks down the area's narrow, country roads.
'The character of Lowhill Township will be significantly changed forever,' campaigner Sue McGorry told the Inquirer. 'It will be destroyed.'
An Amazon fulfillment center under construction in Ontario, California, US, on Friday, March 17, 2023
In Pittsgrove, New Jersey, activists are fighting to prevent millions of square feet of warehouses being built on swathes of rural farmland.
'The reason Pittsgrove is still a beautiful place is because for decades and decades, there's been a purposeful effort to make it be a beautiful place,' said Nicholas Mesiano of the Save Pittsgrove campaign.
Save Pittsgrove recently held a protest rally at one of the sites and held signs and t-shirts emblazoned with the message: 'No mega warehouses'.
The promise of an economic boom for areas where warehouses are planned has also been challenged in recent months.
Data suggests the pandemic demand for space has eased off – and even reversed in some cases, leading some businesses to vacate warehouse space.
In the Inland Empire, warehouse jobs declined in 2022 for the first time in decades.
For the residents in Bloomington, they simply want the warehouses kept far enough from schools and homes to avoid health damage caused by the environmental impact.
'We are not against warehouses,' said a joint response the Bloomington development from Senator Connie M. Leyva and assembly member Eloise Gomez Reyes.
'But we believe that they do not belong immediately adjacent to homes or schools where the health impacts would be most damaging and long lasting to children and families.'