KVCR's "The Warehouse Empire" examines the Inland Empire logistics industry
The docuseries, which is directed by San Bernardino-based filmmaker Sofia Figueroa, premieres tonight on KVCR TV (channel 24) at 7 p.m.
Tonight at 7 p.m., KVCR TV—the Inland Empire’s PBS affiliate—will premiere an important new docuseries titled, “The Warehouse Empire.” Directed by San Bernardino-based filmmaker Sofia Figueroa, “The Warehouse Empire” provides a timely, fair, and—at times—infuriating examination of the Inland Empire’s enormous logistics industry and its environmental, economic, and social impact.
The Inland Empire has been called the “warehouse capital of the world.” According to Pitzer College’s professor Susan A. Phillips, as of 2021, the IE was home to more than 4,000 warehouses comprising a collective one billion square feet of warehouse floor space, much of it constructed in the past decade. More warehouses have subsequently been approved or are under consideration by area city councils and planning commissions.
The logistics industry and its political allies tout these warehouses for bringing jobs to the region. However, local activists and community members highlight the steep costs associated with the industry’s labor practices, warehouse sprawl, and health and environmental impact—particularly in communities of color.
A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to attend a partial screening and panel discussion of “The Warehouse Empire” at Riverside’s Civil Rights Institute. In the docuseries, Ms. Figueroa sets out to understand how the logistics industry came to dominate the region and what that means for those who work in and live near warehouse facilities and their networks of planes, trains, and diesel truck routes.
To understand the logistics industry and its impacts, Figueroa interviews various subject matter experts, community members, and activists. In part 1 of the docuseries, Figueroa asks KVCR reporter and Frontline Observer publisher Anthony Victoria why the Inland Empire has become such a hotbed for warehouse development.
Victoria: I think there’s several reasons, but one of the main ones is cheap rent. So, developers find that the land here is leased at very low rates compared to other regions. The other reason is that it’s a strategic point of goods movement, and it always has been if you look at our history.
According to an internal Amazon memo that was leaked in December, a stunning 40 percent of the e-commerce giant’s global goods move from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the Inland Empire where they are sorted and shipped to consumers’ doorsteps. This arrangement provides consumers with quick, cheap access to goods, but it also comes at steep costs for Inland Empire communities, which, among other things, have the worst air quality in the country.
Victoria: Along with the economic disparities, along with the plight, there are people struggling to breathe, people dying of cancer—people like my mom, she died of cancer, unfortunately. So many other people that actually have organized in this movement, who came before people like you and I, have passed away as a result of the impacts. It’s like a slow violence … In a lot of ways, people are fighting for their lives.
As Victoria documents in his Frontline Observer series, “Pavement Politics,” the unincorporated community of Bloomington has become a flashpoint for tensions between warehouse developers, their political allies, and community members. The Bloomington Business Park Specific Plan, which is being developed by Howard Industrial Partners, is currently resulting in the demolition of one school and more than 100 homes, a disproportionate number of which are rented by Bloomington’s majority-Latino residents.
In “The Warehouse Empire,” Figueroa visits two former residents of Bloomington—Thomas and Kim Rocha. In 2014, the Rochas received a letter from the county explaining that a developer was interested in purchasing the land directly behind their home, re-zoning it from residential to commercial, and putting up a 340,000 square foot warehouse.
The Rochas organized neighbors to oppose the development, and they told Figueroa the developer offered them $55,000 to change their tune. The Rochas did not budge, but the warehouse—which Figueroa describes as “dystopian”—went up anyway. I won’t give away all the details of the Rochas’ story, but in one particularly poignant scene, they described the county meeting when the development was approved:
Kim Rocha: We had put, like he said, five years of our life into that [neighborhood organizing]. And, um, they voted, and they passed it 4-1. We had standing room only—people couldn’t even get in there. I mean, people had took off work. They said, like 300 people on the outside—they couldn’t even get in.
Thomas Rocha: You talk about brokenhearted people and devastation … It was like quiet, and we’re like stunned that it passed after all the hard work that we did.
Kim Rocha: We prayed a lot. We cried a lot. And we said like, “What are we going to do?” You know, our quality of life is now gonna be—it’s just so different from what we thought our retirement years would be.
In part 2 of “The Warehouse Empire,” Figueroa explores the region’s historical transition from an economy built on vast citrus groves (the region was formerly known as the “Orange Empire”) to one of “cement, asphalt, and warehouses.” She also talks to two more warehousing and logistics experts—Claremont McKenna College economist Dr. Manfred Kiel and People’s Collective for Environment Justice (PC4EJ) co-founder and policy analyst Andrea Vidaurre.
Dr. Keil explains that employment in the Inland Empire logistics industry really took off with the Covid-19 global pandemic and the associated boom in online shopping. However, he notes that since about February 2022 warehousing and logistics employment has actually declined, resulting in many layoffs. Those who have not been laid off must contend with the industry’s low wages.
Keil: The warehouse industry, the logistics industry—let’s face it—does not, on average, have very high-paying jobs … That is in many ways the criticism of the logistics industry: Yes, it provides jobs, but these are low-paying jobs, and they don’t create a lot of value-added.
Looking ahead, Keil says the Inland Empire’s logistics-heavy economy is “pretty scary” for regional employment, as many warehouse and trucking jobs are highly susceptible to automation.
PC4EJ’s Andrea Vidaurre stresses that environmental and safety risks associated with warehouses are not some future threats, though; they are already here. In addition to pollution associated with the industry’s some 600,000 daily diesel trips, Amazon was recently fined $6 million for labor and safety violations at two IE warehouses. Vidaurre also highlights the risks to drivers and community members when trucks are routed through local neighborhoods.
Vidaurre: We really need policies that say, if you’re going to put in a warehouse, fine. Make sure it’s clean. But make sure the trucking routes are not going close to homes and schools. Make sure that there’s a buffer, right?
The impact of warehousing and logistics is felt by everyone in the IE. However, Vidaurre notes that the costs associated with the industry are disproportionately borne by communities of color. She points to a 2021 report by PC4EJ and University of Redlands students that mapped the growth of the Southern California logistics industry in relation to health, environmental, and racial disparities. The report concluded:
[I]t’s evident that the warehouse industry has failed to take into account the public’s health when building their facilities near communities of color. From cumulative impacts on air quality to unjust land use and zoning decisions, the impact warehouses and the global goods movement has on environmental justice communities is a textbook form of environmental racism.
Vidaurre drives home the basic injustice here:
Vidaurre: There are studies that show that our zip codes here—closest to the warehouses—are the ones that shop the least from Amazon. While the people that shop the most from Amazon—that get a package every single day, that get a shipment of packages every single day—they live the farthest from it, you know?
Figueroa: That’s crazy.
Vidaurre: So, what are our communities being built for? Because they should be being built for us, right? For us to thrive, for us to have opportunities, for us to live long and healthy lives. But if they’re just being built so we can support someone else’s benefit, then that’s not fair.
While there are plenty of troubling insights in “Warehouse Empire,” it is also a story of hope and empowerment. Vidaurre notes that the Inland Empire and L.A. have some of the first regulations in the country to address warehouse pollution. Indeed, in April 2024, Vidaurre won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her grassroots leadership in getting the California Air Resources Board to pass two regulations that will significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. According to the Goldman Prize website, those regulations “will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.” And just this August, PC4EJ and its community allies had another major victory when the Southern California Air Quality Management District unanimously passed a similar railway regulation.
One possible critique of “The Warehouse Empire” is that it does not include many voices in support of warehouses. At the June screening, KVCR executive director Connie Leyva explained that this was not for lack of trying; they simply had a hard time getting industry and political supporters to go on record. Still, Figueroa does a solid job representing the pro-warehouse perspective (i.e., “jobs, jobs, jobs”) and letting viewers decide how to evaluate the industry’s costs, benefits, and compromises.
I have only had an opportunity to watch parts 1 and 2 of “Warehouse Empire,” but I am looking forward to watching the remainder tonight. Figueroa’s docuseries provides a fair, informative account of the IE logistics industry. It features authoritative and authentic community voices (including Figueroa’s own), and it tells powerful and poignant stories alongside moments of levity.
I highly recommend tuning in for “The Warehouse Empire” premiere tonight on KVCR TV channel 24, or you can watch it thereafter on the PBS website. When you do, please drop a comment below or on Instagram to share what you think.