Locally unwanted land use

Last updated
Landfills are common LULUs. Landfill compactor.jpg
Landfills are common LULUs.

In land-use planning, a locally unwanted land use (LULU) is a land use that creates externality costs on those living in close proximity. These costs include potential health hazards, poor aesthetics, or reduction in home values. LULUs often gravitate to disadvantaged areas such as slums, industrial neighborhoods and poor, minority, unincorporated or politically under-represented places that cannot fight them off. [1]

Contents

LULUs can include power plants, dumps (landfills), prisons, roads, factories, hospitals and many other developments. Planning seeks to distribute and reduce the harm of LULUs by zoning, environmental laws, community participation, buffer areas, clustering, dispersing and other such devices. Thus planning tries to protect property and environmental values by finding sites and operating procedures that minimize the LULU's effects.

Types

Externalities

An externality is something that happens as a result of a transaction that affects an uninvolved third party. LULU's present externalities in various ways, most notably those that inflict the senses: harsh smell, reduced aesthetics, noise pollution, and poor livability.

Inequality

It has been suggested that a correlation exists between the location of sites considered as locally unwanted land uses and the proximity to minority populations as a result of market dynamics. That is, externalities associated with LULUs (such as poor aesthetics, lack of desirable amenities, etc.) tend to discourage high-earning buyers from moving to the area, and thus perpetuate the cycle in which low income individuals have few choices except those which happen to be in areas with LULUs such as landfills and highways. This tends to lower home values. Further, the same market forces, especially those that may discriminate against minorities, could make it so that these areas happen to be populated predominantly by minorities. [2]

Throughout the United States, "three out of five African Americans and Latino Americans live in communities with abandoned toxic waste sites." [3] This pattern is typically seen because of discrimination and racism throughout the infrastructure development process. [3] [4] It is becoming more and more common. What makes a LULU such as this unique is that they cause displacement, whereas a landfill, dump, roads, or prisons simply discourage home-buyers from entering the area and keep home prices low. High-end health food stores such as Whole Foods causes displacement by attracting high-earning home buyers into the area, causing rents and home prices to rise. This has been dubbed the "Whole Foods effect". [4]

Gentrification

San Francisco

San Francisco, like many other large cities in the United States, has a high cost of living. Its proximity to Silicon Valley lends itself to attracting high-income home buyers. As of 2013, 53% of low-income households throughout the entirety of the Bay Area were undergoing gentrification pressures caused by transit investment and new developments. [5] [6]

Boston

Boston has been known historically for the high-cost of living that accompanies residence there, as well as being subject to various urban renewal projects during America's Urban Renewal era. These renewal projects often caused the displacement of Jewish and Italian immigrants as well as working class individuals in surrounding areas in its earliest years. [7] [8]

Superfund

Love Canal residents discuss revitalizing their contaminated neighborhood with Administrator Lee Thomas in September 1985. Love Canal (5621742089).jpg
Love Canal residents discuss revitalizing their contaminated neighborhood with Administrator Lee Thomas in September 1985.

Superfund, or the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, was created to mitigate the cleanup and costs thereafter of hazardous waste sites. Superfund sites are often thought of when discussing LULUs. Love Canal was the first superfund site, established because of chemical waste that was being dumped into the canal by Hooker Electrical Company, later known as Hooker Chemical Company. The incident attracted widespread media attention and the neighborhoods surrounding Love Canal have since been destroyed. [9] It has been suggested that some of these sites tend to be located in areas that have a high number of low-income, minority residents. [10]

Native Americans

Of the 1,000+ Superfund sites in America, 25% of them (both capped and active) are situated directly on or near Native American reservations. [11] Many of these sites can interfere with various rituals and affect cultural objects, and create further conflict between the Government and affected tribes. [12] As discussed in a report from the All Indian Pueblo's Office of Environmental Protection, "the Superfund HRS [Hazard Ranking System] model does not account for Indian religious and ceremonial impacts from sites. Due to their importance in Pueblo life, culturally significant plants, animals, ceremonial surface water use, and sacred areas should be considered as critical impacts when evaluating the various pathways of exposure of the HRS.” [13]

Environmental justice movement

The environmental justice movement began after the discovery of illegal dumping throughout 14 North Carolina counties. 31,000 gallons of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) was dumped by the Ward Transformers Company throughout these counties. The state government in North Carolina devised a landfill diversion plan for this waste after discovering the dumping, but the landfill was sited in Warren County, which had the greatest concentration of African American residents of all North Carolina's 100 counties, and was also one of the poorest, ranking 97th in GDP of the counties in North Carolina. [14] The conservation movement was made popular by the emphasis on wildlife protection and wilderness preservation during the 20th century, but this presented cost barriers to poorer individuals whose concerns were not with wildlife and wilderness preservation. By virtue of the fact that this movement was not championed by poor people in its formative stages, it has caused these individuals to view the mainstream environmental movement as "elitist". This elitism is understood through three different forms, according to a study by Denton E. Morrison and Riley E. Dunlap:

  1. Compositional – Environmentalists tend to be from the middle and upper classes, both socially and financially
  2. Ideological – The reforms benefit the movement's supporters but impose costs on nonparticipants, i.e.: wildlife preservation benefits middle/upper class individuals because they have a greater utility derived from these things, poor people do not get as much utility
  3. Impact – These reforms are "regressive" in their impact to society, meaning that disenfranchised individuals are disproportionally harmed by these changes made by the middle/upper class [15]

The environmental justice movement emerged as a critique of mainstream environmentalism's elitism and racism. [16] One of the greatest barriers to entry for poor individuals to join in the environmental justice movement is legal fees. In order to try to prevent the kinds of pollution like that of Warren County, there are a great number of legal fees involved which are often costly. To that end, many of the companies that produce pollution will encourage acceptance of this pollution by communities in order to avoid cleanup costs and costs associated with making certain industries more environmentally sustainable. [17] That is, the cost of paying communities to accept pollution is often less than the (initial) costs of avoiding pollution all together. Therefore, it can be ascertained that poorer communities are likely to accept compensation for a certain level of pollution, and wealthier communities are willing to accept a smaller amount of pollution and demand a greater level of environmental quality. The difference is that one group is able to pay for environmental quality, and the other group is not.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emelle, Alabama</span> Town in Alabama, United States

Emelle is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. It was named after the daughters of the man who donated the land for the town. The town was started in the 19th century but not incorporated until 1981. The daughters of the man who donated were named Emma Dial and Ella Dial, so he combined the two names to create Emelle. Emelle was famous for its great cotton. The first mayor of Emelle was James Dailey. He served two terms. The current mayor is Roy Willingham Sr. The population was 32 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brownfield land</span> Previous industrial or commercial land, often somewhat contaminated as a result

Brownfield is previously-developed land that has been abandoned or underutilized, and which may carry pollution, or a risk of pollution, from industrial use. The specific definition of brownfield land varies and is decided by policy makers and land developers within different countries. The main difference in definitions of whether a piece of land is considered a brownfield or not depends on the presence or absence of pollution. Overall, brownfield land is a site previously developed for industrial or commercial purposes and thus requires further development before reuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toxic waste</span> Any unwanted material which can cause harm

Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm. Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Superfund</span> US federal program

Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program is designed to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Sites managed under this program are referred to as Superfund sites. Of all the sites selected for possible action under this program, 1178 remain on the National Priorities List (NPL) that makes them eligible for cleanup under the Superfund program. Sites on the NPL are considered the most highly contaminated and undergo longer-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanups). The state of New Jersey, the fifth smallest state in the U.S., is the location of about ten percent of the priority Superfund sites, a disproportionate amount.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Jersey Meadowlands</span> Region of New Jersey, United States

New Jersey Meadowlands, also known as the Hackensack Meadowlands after the primary river flowing through it, is a general name for a large ecosystem of wetlands in northeastern New Jersey in the United States, a few miles to the west of New York City. During the 20th century, much of the Meadowlands area was urbanized, and it became known for being the site of large landfills and decades of environmental abuse. A variety of projects began in the late 20th century to restore and conserve the remaining ecological resources in the Meadowlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental racism</span> Environmental injustice that occurs within a racialized context

Environmental racism, ecological racism, or ecological apartheid is a form of racism leading to negative environmental outcomes such as landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal disproportionately impacting communities of color, violating substantive equality. Internationally, it is also associated with extractivism, which places the environmental burdens of mining, oil extraction, and industrial agriculture upon indigenous peoples and poorer nations largely inhabited by people of color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munisport</span>

Munisport Landfill is a closed landfill located in North Miami, Florida adjacent to a low-income community, a regional campus of Florida International University, Oleta River State Park, and estuarine Biscayne Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren County PCB Landfill</span>

Warren County PCB Landfill was a PCB landfill located in Warren County, North Carolina, near the community of Afton south of Warrenton. The landfill was created in 1982 by the State of North Carolina as a place to dump contaminated soil as result of an illegal PCB dumping incident. The site, which is about 150 acres (0.61 km2), was extremely controversial and led to years of lawsuits. Warren County was one of the first cases of environmental justice in the United States and set a legal precedent for other environmental justice cases. The site was approximately three miles south of Warrenton. The State of North Carolina owned about 19 acres (77,000 m2) of the tract where the landfill was located, and Warren County owned the surrounding acreage around the borders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kin-Buc Landfill</span>

The Kin-Buc Landfill is a 220-acre (0.89 km2) Superfund site located in Edison, New Jersey where 70 million US gallons (260,000 m3) of liquid toxic waste and 1 million tons of solid waste were dumped. It was active from the late 1940s to 1976. It was ordered closed in 1977. Cleanup operations have been underway to address environmental issues with contamination from 1980s through to 2000s. This site was one of the largest superfund sites in New Jersey having taken in around 90 million US gallons (340,000 m3). The site is heavily contaminated with PCBs, which leaked into Edmonds Creek, a tributary of the Raritan River.

The former Operating Industries Inc. Landfill is a Superfund site located in Monterey Park, California at 900 N Potrero Grande Drive. From 1948 to 1984, the landfill accepted 30 million tons of solid municipal waste and 300 million US gallons (1,100,000 m3) of liquid chemicals. Accumulating over time, the chemical waste polluted the air, leached into groundwater, and posed a fire hazard, spurring severely critical public health complaints. Recognizing OII Landfill's heavy pollution, EPA placed the financial responsibility of the dump's clean-up on the main waste-contributing companies, winning hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements for the protection of human health and the environment.

Brownfields are defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as properties that are complicated by the potential presence of pollutants or otherwise hazardous substances. The pollutants such as heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contaminating these sites are typically due to commercial or industrial work that was previously done on the land. This includes locations such as abandoned gas stations, laundromats, factories, and mills. By a process called land revitalization, these once polluted sites can be remediated into locations that can be utilized by the public.

The Ringwood Mines landfill site is a 500-acre former iron mining site located in the borough of Ringwood, New Jersey. From 1967 to 1980, the Ford Motor Company dumped hazardous waste on this land, which negatively affected the health and properties of Ramapough Mountain Indians. This led to Mann V. Ford, a 1997 lawsuit between Ramapough Lenape Tribe's lawsuit of the Ford Motor Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shpack Landfill</span> Hazardous waste site in Massachusetts

Shpack Landfill is a hazardous waste site in Norton, Massachusetts. After assessment by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it was added to the National Priorities List in October 1986 for long-term remedial action. The site cleanup is directed by the federal Superfund program. The Superfund site covers 9.4 acres, mostly within Norton, with 3.4 acres in the adjoining city of Attleboro. The Norton site was operated as a landfill dump accepting domestic and industrial wastes, including low-level radioactive waste, between 1946 and 1965. The source of most of the radioactive waste, consisting of uranium and radium, was Metals and Controls Inc. which made enriched uranium fuel elements for the U.S. Navy under contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Metals and Controls merged with Texas Instruments in 1959. The Shpack landfill operation was shut down by a court order in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moyer's Landfill</span>

Moyer's Landfill was a privately owned landfill in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, United States. It was originally farmland outside the town. In the 1940s, the owner started accepting trash and municipal waste as a way to make additional money. The original landfill was 39 acres and did not have a liner to protect the land from contaminate. A liner was added to a new section in the late 1970s. Over time, the landfill accepted sewage, and industrial wastes which contained hazardous substances in addition to municipal waste. The site was closed by the EPA in 1981, and was one of the first "Superfund" sites added to the National Priorities List.

Gentrification, the process of altering the demographic and socioeconomic composition of a neighborhood usually by decreasing the percentage of low-income minority residents and increasing the percentage higher-income residents, has been an issue between the residents of minority neighborhoods in Chicago who believe the influx of new residents destabilizes their communities, and the gentrifiers who see it as a process that economically improves a neighborhood. Researchers have debated the significance of its effects on the neighborhoods and whether or not it leads to the displacement of residents.

Environmental, ecological or green gentrification is a process in which cleaning up pollution or providing green amenities increases local property values and attracts wealthier residents to a previously polluted or disenfranchised neighbourhood. Green amenities include green spaces, parks, green roofs, gardens and green and energy efficient building materials. These initiatives can heal many environmental ills from industrialization and beautify urban landscapes. Additionally, greening is imperative for reaching a sustainable future. However, if accompanied by gentrification, these initiatives can have an ambiguous social impact. For example, if the low income households are displaced or forced to pay higher housing costs. First coined by Sieg et al. (2004), environmental gentrification is a relatively new concept, although it can be considered as a new hybrid of the older and wider topics of gentrification and environmental justice. Social implications of greening projects specifically with regards to housing affordability and displacement of vulnerable citizens. Greening in cities can be both healthy and just.

Guam v. United States, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with a dispute on fiscal responsibility for environmental and hazardous cleanup of the Ordot Dump created by the United States Navy on the island of Guam in the 1940s, which Guam then ran after becoming a territory in 1950 until the landfill's closure in 2011. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, Guam had filed its lawsuit to recover a portion of cleanup costs for the landfill from the United States government in a timely manner, allowing their case to proceed.

Environmental racism is a form of institutional racism, in which people of colour bear a disproportionate burden of environmental harms, such as pollution from hazardous waste disposal and the effects of natural disasters. Environmental racism exposes Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic populations to physical health hazards and may negatively impact mental health. It creates disparities in many different spheres of life, such as transportation, housing, and economic opportunity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordot Dump</span> Former landfill on the Pacific island of Guam

Ordot Dump, also known as Ordot Landfill, was a landfill on the western Pacific island of Guam that operated from the 1940s until 2011. Originally operated by the U.S. military, ownership was transferred to the Government of Guam in 1950, though it continued to receive all waste on the island, including from Naval Base Guam and Andersen Air Force Base, through the 1970s.

References

  1. ↑ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City . Routledge. pp.  437. ISBN   9780415252256.
  2. ↑ Liu, Feng (1997). "Dynamics and Causation of Environmental Equity, Locally Unwanted Land Uses, and Neighborhood Changes". Environmental Management. 21 (5): 643–656. doi:10.1007/s002679900057. ISSN   0364-152X. PMID   9236281. S2CID   21044966.
  3. 1 2 Eitzen, Stanley D.; Johnston, Janis E. (2015). Inequality: Social Class and Its Consequences– via Google Scholar.
  4. 1 2 Goss, Adeline. "Transcript: The "Whole Foods Effect": A grocery's role in transforming cities" (PDF). NPR .
  5. ↑ Misra, Tanvi. "Mapping Gentrification and Displacement in San Francisco". City Lab. The Atlantic. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  6. ↑ Pogash, Carol (2015-05-22). "Gentrification Spreads an Upheaval in San Francisco's Mission District". The New York Times.
  7. ↑ Trickey, Erick. "Will Urban Renewal Ever End?". Next City. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  8. ↑ Hampson, Rick. "Studies: Gentrification a boost for everyone". USA Today. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  9. ↑ Verhovek, Sam Howe (1988-08-05). "After 10 Years, the Trauma of Love Canal Continues". The New York Times.
  10. ↑ Gareis-Smith, Donna (1994). "Environmental Racism: The Failure of Equal Protection to Provide a Judicial Remedy and the Potential of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act". litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com. Litigation Essentials. Retrieved 2016-12-15.
  11. ↑ Hansen, Terri C. (17 June 2014). "Kill the Land, Kill the People: There Are 532 Superfund Sites in Indian Country!". Indian Country Media Network. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  12. ↑ Michelsen, Theresa. "Superfund on Tribal Lands: Issues, Challenges, and Solutions" (PDF). Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  13. ↑ Tano, Mervyn L. (March 1998). "Superfund in Indian Country: The Role of the Federal-Indian Trust Relationship in Prioritizing Cleanup" (PDF). International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  14. ↑ "History: Warren County, NC | Environmental Injustice". sites.duke.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
  15. ↑ Morrison, Denton E.; Dunlap, Riley E. (1986). "Environmentalism and Elitism: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis". Environmental Management. 10 (5): 581–589. Bibcode:1986EnMan..10..581M. doi:10.1007/bf01866762. S2CID   153561660 – via SpringerLink.
  16. ↑ Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement. Urban and Industrial Environments. MIT Press. 12 January 2007. ISBN   9780262195522 . Retrieved 2019-02-05.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  17. ↑ Brown, Thomas C.; Gregory, Robin (1999). "Why the WTA-WTP disparity matters". Ecological Economics. 28 (3): 323–335. doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(98)00050-0.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.