Philosophy Engineering Ethics Essay

`Brownfields and Greenfields: An Ethical Perspective on Land Use

by Jack C. Swearengen*

America's industries and families continue to forsake cities for suburban and rural

environs, in the process leaving nonproductive lands (brownfields) and

simultaneously removing greenfield land from agriculturally or biologically

productive use. In spite of noteworthy exceptions, urban regions which once

functioned as vital communities continue in economic and social decline.

Discussion or debate about the problem (or, indeed, whether it is a problem at all)

invokes systems of values which often are not articulated. Some attribute the

urban exodus to departure from personal ethical norms (e.g., substance abuse,

violence, welfare addiction) by urban residents, as though ethical decline is

driving the phenomenon. Others take the exact opposite stance, that social and

economic decline follow the departure of the economic base. There is no

consensus on what government should do about the problem, or whether

government should be involved at all. I present elements of a land-use ethic which

can accommodate the foregoing. I argue that government is already involved in

the brownfields problem because urban flight is facilitated by public policies

which defacto subsidize the process. I further argue that the debate invokes key-

but unexamined-assumptions regarding limits. Where there are few substitutes for resources and the social cost of exploitation is high, government intervention in the market is necessary' "value-free" economic approaches need to be

supplemented by values concerning what ought to be, i.e., what is desirable for

society.

INTRODUCTION

The perspective developed in this paper reflects my experience within the United States. As a youth I worked the "graveyard shift" in a corrugated box factory in Emeryville, California and in a "tin-can" plant in Fullerton. I worked day-shift in a cannery in Hayward and loaded trucks as a member of the Teamsters Union. Those factories and most of their neighbors are now closed, but many of their sites remain as contaminated lots and derelict buildings which have come to be known as "urban brownfields." As a frequent Amtrak passenger, I have seen the problem nationwide because railroads enter cities through former industrial regions. My personal experience emphasizes North America; how ever, similar sites are visible in England, and Asian metro areas which continue to mushroom in size are candidates for the analysis. Conversely, The Nether- lands, Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and some American cities provide evidence that high population density is not inescapably associated with grime and urban decay.

 Manufacturing Engineering, Washington State University, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Avenue, Vancouver, WA 98686-9600. Swearengen's interests include life-cycle design, transportation, the impacts of technology on society and the encounter between science and faith. He is developing a new undergraduate engineering curriculum in which ethics, sustainability, com- inunication, and teamwork are taught concurrently with technical material. He previously served as Scientific Advisor for Arms Control in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Manager at Sandia National Laboratories, developing technology for national policy: weapons, energy, arms control, environmental monitoring, and finally disassembly and disposition of the Cold-War arsenal.

Seeking homogeneous communities and escape from crime and pollution, middle and upper-class people have been abandoning the cities of North America since the end of the World War 11. Industry sometimes follows-and sometimes leads-the exodus, and the combined loss deprives cities of financial and human capital. Other than a few noteworthy exceptions, urban regions which once functioned as vital communities are continuing economic and social decline. Associated with the departure of capital and the emergence of brownfields is a simultaneous loss of greenfields, i.e., removal of land from agriculturally or biologically productive use.

BROWNFIELDS

Brownfields are defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as "abandoned, idled, or underused industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination." I The EPA may not have been first to use the term, but the agency did develop an operational definition which has become normative. Not many years ago it was common to hear about "America's Rust Belt" in reference to cities where heavy industry  e.g., steel making-had abandoned factories and left them to decay. If the suburbanite remains on the interstate highways, he or she may never encounter brownfields and may not be aware of the ongoing nature of the problem. Rust belts are vaguely associated with former industrial areas of the Northeast and the Chicago area. However, California-the Golden State-where growth and economic prosperity once seemed limitless-has a large problem with abandoned industrial sites. Former industrial cities-Oakland, Emeryville, and Richmond in the north, Compton, Vernon, Norwalk, and Los Angeles in the south-are in difficult economic straits. In mid 1966 the city council of Emeryville made headlines by announcing its intent to define the entire city as a toxic waste containment zone.

In 1995 the General Accounting Office estimated that there were 450,000 sites in the U.S. which qualified as brownfields-meaning that the ground is contaminated (or perceived as such) and must be cleaned up before the property can be returned to economic productivity.' Associated with these sites, and the exodus which created them, are numerous contingent effects:

1Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Environmental Protection Agency, "Brownflelds Glossary of Terms," http:/Iwww.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/glossary.htm. 2OfficeofSolidWasteandEmergencyResponse,EnvironmentalProtectionAgency,"Brownfields Home Page: Major Milestones and Ac6omplishments," http:/Iwww.epa.gov/swerops/bf/htmi-doc.

unemployment, loss of community (the sense of place and belonging where people work, play, and live), segregation (both economic and racial), polarization between urban and suburban regions, and increased use of petroleum for commuting to and from the suburbs.

Departure of industry and the non-poor reduces city governments' ability to produce tax revenue to provide services and mitigate inner city troubles. "The process," as one writer has phrased it, "makes a mockery of equality of opportunity."3 Free market advocates, on the other hand, argue that liberal policies cause taxes to rise, thereby driving industry from the cities.' Prior to the environmental legislation of the 1980s, departing industrial organizations had no accountability to the city or the abandoned community. Even with present legislation they have minimal or no accountability; ghost factories are abandoned and contaminated lands are left to the consequences of runoff and percolation. The forces driving the economic, environmental, and social conse- quences of urban flight are systemic, and they will continue to accrue without incentives to redirect the trend.

GREENFIELDS

Recently, the exodus has entered a second phase: industry is moving again away from the suburban communities that grew in the preceding four decades.. Today industry is ruralizing itself. Cities and their suburban rings are now experiencing population decline. During 1995 and 1996, U.S. cities lost 2.4 million people and suburbs gained 2.1 million, but metropolitan areas including suburbs experienced a net loss of about 275,000 people who moved to small towns and rural areas.' In this new phase of the exodus, families are now moving away from the relatively young metropolitan areas of California. Greenfields are being consumed at ever greater distances from the urban centers. A half million acres of prime agricultural land in the Central Valley of California were removed from agricultural productivity during 1982-19874, another million acres will be developed in the next 40 years without change in policy.6 This land is among the most agriculturally productive on Earth! Nationwide, 4.3 million acres of farmland were lost to development between 1982 and 1992, nearly fifty acres every hour of every day.7 Between 1982 and

3 Graham Fysh, "Expert Predicts Housing Problems for Seattle, Portland," The Oregonian, 10 January 1997. Steven Hayward, "Broken Cities: Liberalism's Urban Legacy," Policy Review, no. 88 (March- April 1998); http://www.policyreview.com/mar98/cities.html. 5 "Geographical Mobility," March 1995 to March 1996, U.S. Bureau of the Census (December 1997). 6 "Beyond Sprawl: New Patterns of Growth to Fit the New Califomia," San Francisco: Bank of America Environmental Policies and Programs Office, 1996. 7 A. Ann Sorensen, Richard P. Greene, and Karen Russ, Farming at the Edge, American Farinland Trust Center for Agriculture in the Environment (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University, 1997).

1992 Washington State lost 743,671 acres of farmland to development, and Oregon lost 130,285. In 1962 Arnold Toynbee wrote that "it used to be that cities were protected by walls against the danger of being reabsorbed into the countryside. In the last 100 years, open countryside is being counterattacked and overrun by cities in a headlong career of territorial aggression. 118 Today the greenbelts (wetlands, parks, forests, and agricultural preserves) need to be fenced off. The ultimate contradiction may be gated rural communities, which have arisen like modern reenactments of the ancient walled cities.

In the absence of a public consensus on land use, planners inevitably vote consistently on the side of developers. This situation is easy to understand. First, most county governments cannot afford to hire consultants to analyze the technical arguments prepared by the developers experts. Second, few counties are willing to invite the lawsuits that are certain to follow a denial of permits. Third, the developers can buy a favorable outcome by offering to build parks, schools, green belts, etc. In Portland, Oregon, and many other metropolitan areas, the temporal and often strident debate over the role of the market in land use is being played out in local and regional planning meetings and on the forum pages of the local newspapers.9 The polemics focus mainly on traffic congestion and property rights, while the social costs of urban decay and suburban sprawl are mostly overlooked. The fact that benefits of development accrue locally while the costs are borne regionally (and, many have argued, disproportionately by the poor 10) seems to remain in the province of academics.

MARKET FORCES AND PUBLIC POLICY

Discussion or debate about the brownfields and greenfields problem (or, indeed, whether it is a problem at all) invokes systems of values. Some attribute the exodus to decline of personal virtues brought about by welfare addiction, as though ethical decline is driving the phenomenon. I I Others take an opposite stance: that social decay results from loss of economic opportunity. 11 Moreover, there is no consen- sus on what government should do about the problem, or whether government should be involved at all. I hold the view that government is involved because

8 Arnold Toynbee, "Cities in History," in Arnold Toynbee, ed., Cities of Destiny (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), pp. 12-28.

9 Fysh, "Expert Predicts Housing Shortage"; Steve Suo and Nena Baker, "Tax Vote with a Tude, Portland," The Oregonian, 15 December 1996; Julian L. Simon, "Finite Doesn't Fit Here, Portland," The Oregonian and Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services, I I February 1997.

10 Hayward, "Broken Cities"; Charles Lee, "Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization and Brownfields: The Search for Authentic Signs of Hope," NEJAC Waste and Facility Siting Subcommittee, http:/Iwww.epa.gov/swerosps/ej/html-doc/pubO2.htrn, 31 January 1996.

11 Charles R. Dechert, "The American Bishops' Letter on the U.S Economy Revisited," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (1991): 73-92; Hayward, "Broken Cities."

12 Michael L. Siegfried, "The Inner City in the 21st Century: Huxley's Brave New World Revisited?" Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8 (1996): 19-30.

the process is facilitated by Public policies which de facto subsidize the exodus. This view transcends the obvious argument that flight erodes the vitality of urban centers- Human lives are immediately impacted by economic forces, and (with a longer lead time) by the environmental impacts (brownfield creation and greenfield loss). Therefore, public policy decisions which shape demographics need to be guided by ethical principles in concert with market forces. For the good of society as a whole, cooperative action on a large scale will be required-larger than individual efforts by landowners, developers, cities, and land-use planners.

New technologies are emerging for decontamination, decommissioning, and remediation of brownfields. With stimulation by values-based public policy, the application can attract private investment, restore productive use, and stem the loss of greenfields. Before a socioeconomic approach is proposed, how- ever, we must acknowledge four arguments raised by opponents of land-use planning: (1) such planning is best handled by the marketplace, and government should not intervene; (2) cities are obsolete, (3) urban decline is a result of loss of personal morality; and (4) economics is value-neutral and a separate discipline from ethics.

(1) Does market economics provide the best approach to land use? Free market advocates maintain that consumers should be able to shop for the right city, town, or county to live in based on the shoppers' desired mix of services and taxes." If agricultural productivity of farmland is not valued per se, however, the loss of prime agricultural land cannot be included in market valuation. In a familiar sequence, developers build on the cheapest land, which inevitably lies beyond the urban zone. Government then must fill in behind with brand new infrastructure-roads, sewer systems, and schools-paid in part by those whose existing roads and schools are left to decline. Property values rise in a ring that marches steadily outward from the city and fall in older suburbs' 14 As an area sprawls in this fashion, poorer people are unable to move from the inner city areas, while the non-poor move out to escape poverty, crime, and pollution of the central area. The process is not only market driven (because undeveloped land is inexpensive and requires no cleanup), but also it is propelled by public policy! Brownfields are created and greenfields are lost as a consequence of economic determinism untempered by social and economic values. Thus, social costs of urban sprawl and urban flight are externalized-not borne by the immediate beneficiaries of the local actions.

The automobile and the government program of highway building campaign has been the catalyst and agent of suburbs and sprawl. In contrast, trains are the agents of cities and centralization.

Interstate highways and other roads have been constructed and are maintained by government for the objective of increased mobility and increased productivity. However, the cost borne by government in support of private automobile use has been estimated at $2000 per auto per year above what drivers pay in taxes and other fees. The result is a total $300 billion dollars per year indirect subsidy. 16 This amount is much larger than the U.S. defense budget and more than five percent of the Gross Domestic Product. The subsidy includes parking lots, the cost of building and repairing roads, loss of economic activity from congestion, the cost of illness caused by air pollution, and medical care for the victims of two million accidents each year. It does not include the cost of imported oil, use of the military to assure the supply of oil, or any of the wider aspects of pollution such as environmental costs of spills and global warming. 17 Petroleum consumption alone should provide sufficient motive for government intervention, because at minimum, U.S. dependence on imported oil severely constrains our foreign policy options; and at most, it greatly increases the probability of wars for assurance of supply. Nevertheless, a sufficient ethic for the brownfield- greenfield problem cannot be fashioned on pragmatic considerations alone.

(2) Are cities obsolete? Some writers are suggesting that cities have become unnecessary for business transactions in the information age, as a consequence of enhanced mobility and progress in communications technology. 18 Because people and machines can now communicate electronically, it is argued, commerce is becoming distributed such that people no longer need to assemble at integrated central work sites. For example, manufacturing organizations are evolving into "virtual enterprises," wherein different aspects of product development (design, cost estimation, procurement, testing, fabrication, and assembly) are carried out at geographically dispersed sites. Telecommuting provides

15 Sarah H. Gordon, Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996). 16 AlanThein Duming, The Carandthe City(Seattle: NorthwestEavironmentalWatch, 1966); Jessica Mathews, "Once a Blessing, Automobiles Turn into a Curse," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, October, 1966; Also see. "Taming the Beast," The Economist, 22-28 June 1996, pp. 1-1 8; Stephen B. Goddard, Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in The American Century (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 255. 17 Free markettdvocates have attempted to discredit the concept of publicly subsidized highway transport (O'Toole, "ISTEA: A Poisonous Brew"). However, even after making all the most favorable assumptions for their desired outcome, they fail to make the case that the automobile operates on a pay-as-we-go basis. Moreover, the advocates obfuscate the debate by calculating high cost of proposed mass transit based on the assumption that there will be no shiftfromprivate automobiles! 11 Siegfried, "The Inner City of the 2 Ist Century"; George Guilder, Life After Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Joel Kotkin, "Beyond White Flight," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 18-24 March 1996, pp. 26-27; Steven Hayward, "Land-Use Planners Don't Understand Urban Complexities," San Ramon Valley Times, 15 June 1996, p. 3B.

another cited example. Technologically enabled developments such as these imp] y to some that urban decline is inevitable and natural. 19

I believe that the projection of the obsolescence of cities is a wrong and dangerous notion. The proponents of this idea have ignored the social benefits of cities and the social costs of their loss. With the obvious exception of agriculture, cities-in principle-offer the most efficient structure for human production and consumption." Examples include reduced energy use for transportation and space heating, better use of space (spatial organization), reduced consumption of materials for building, efficient use of time (for commuting and shopping), and specialization in skilled trades and professions (e.g., medicine). The cultural advantages (e.g., museums, performing arts, professional sports) that cities offer over rural life are an added benefit.

(3) Is urban decay caused by decline in personal morality? Many conservative theologians, politicians, and journalists insist that a decline of personal virtues among the urban work force is driving industries from the cities." A proponent of this moral causation theory might assert that "virtue can hardly help bearing material fruit."?? This position absolves companies from responsibility to the community. When "free marketeers" argue from this beginning and go on to conclude that the government does not belong in the economy, they are making value statements. Other analysts, however, argue that social decay follows the loss of economic opportunity when industries leave.23 A framework is clearly needed that is capable of addressing the often conflicting and sometimes not clearly articulated value systems involved in the issue.

One could argue with equal force that excessive national pursuit of individual liberty, materialism, and isolationist living (such as telecommuting, internet use, and "cocooning") has been the major contributor to loss of the force of moral and civic codes.24 Employment opportunity also has a lot to do with the result. In 1996, crime in the U.S. reached its lowest level since the government began the surveys in 1993.21 At the same time, unemployment reached its lowest level since 1973 .26 These results are correlated: when people have jobs, they are less likely to be involved in crime. This data posits strongly

19 This paper is the first by the author in which much of the literature search was conducted via the Internet. Research libraries are changing as journals go on-line. '('Toynbee, "Cities in History"; Constantinos Doxiadis, "The Coming World City: Ecumenopolis," in Toynbee, Cities of Destiny, pp. 336-60. 21 Hayward, "Broken Cities"; Dechert, "The American Bishops' Letter." 21 Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 346; Steven Bouma-Prediger, "Creation Care and Character: The Nature and Necessity of the Fcological Virtues," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 50 (1988): 6-22. 23 Siegfried, "The Inner City in the 2 1 st Century.,, 21 Stephen H. Wirls, "The Moral Imperative: Old Liberalism's New Challenge," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8 (1996): 31-48. 21 U.S. Department of Justice Report, 15 November 1997. 26 U.S. Department of Labor Report, 7 November 1997.

against simplistic arguments that crime in the cities is caused by moral decay; instead, a feedback process seems more likely.

(4) Is economics value-neutral and a separate field from ethics? It may be valid-in the academy-to approach economics and ethics as separate fields of study. In this context "positive economics" deals only with how people make choices in allocating resources.21 It is a purely descriptive approach, and therefore value-neutral in a superficial analysis. Positive economics is also deterministic, i.e., outcomes that are economically driven must be right outcomes. This position is closely related to economic determinism: a system whereby outcomes are achieved solely by economic processes. Just outcomes from economic determinism would require the existence of absolutely equitable decision processes, which, I argue, do not exist. Because deterministic economics fails to account for purposeful human activity and social consequences, it is neither value-free nor compassionate.

The brownfields-greenfields problem is as much social as it is environmental and economic. For example, the effects of factory closings upon human communities and upon the environment do not appear in positive economic model S.28 Nevertheless, when judgments must be made about economic investment vs. social costs, about limits (limits to growth, resource limits, etc.), about social impact of public policy, or about using market forces to shape outcomes, economic determinists do not remain silent. Instead, they offer various restatements of Adam Smith's "invisible hand"-in other words, reflex opposition to overt government intervention.

A person's world view-or belief system-defines his or her ethics, and ethics determines behavior. Advocacy of specific economic policies in terms of "oughts," justice, or any other desired outcomes including-in the present example-solving the brownfields-greenfields problem, requires that supposedly "value-free" descriptive economics be replaced with an ethical frame- work. Pragmatism will not suffice for an ethic because it provides no basis for valuing nature unless nature is producing for us; it readily degenerates to exploitation. Carl Sagan, the populist astrophysicist and advocate of method- ological naturalism, concluded that only a religious perspective could solve the looming environmental crisis.29 For Sagan, the religious basis did not have to be true; itjust had to influence its followers to value nature. Thus, the rationale was merely pragmatic, but Sagan implicitly acknowledged that belief determines behavior. Arguing that ethics and economics should be allies, the

17 Ronald Nash, "The Subjective Theory of Economic Value," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (1991): 31-50. '8 John B. Cobb, Jr., Sustaining the Common Good (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1994); Meredith Ramsay, "Redeeming the City: Exploring the Relationship between Church and Metropolis," Urban Affairs Review 33 (1998): 595-626. 29 Carl Sagan, "To Avert a Common Danger: Joint Appeal by Science and Religion for the Environment," Parade Magazine, I March 1992, pp. 10- 14.

Christian economist Judd Patton calls the combination "normative economics."30 Normative economics includes what ought to be (what is desirable), thus, admitting value systems to economics. 31

ETHICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

Having argued thus far for the necessity and the admissibility of an environ- mental ethic that is additive to the economic approach, I now attempt to assemble a sufficient ethical framework for the brownfields-greenfields problem. The framework must be compelling and durable. It must acknowledge that the problem has environmental, social, and economic elements. In other words, relationships among humans must be included in addition to relationships between humans and nature. It also must acknowledge the obvious role of humans as caretakers of and dependents on their environment. In the present application these elements compel cleanup of brownfields and preservation of greenfields.

Especially since Lynn White's oft-quoted article, "The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," it has been fashionable to fault Christianity for environmental degradation in the West; however, such attribution is based on faulty understanding of dominion in Genesis 1.31 A close look at world cultures reveals that, regardless of religious tradition, when population approaches the carrying capacity of the land, environmental degradation follows. The historic "exploit and move on" land-use ethic in the developing United States rested upon the presupposition that the Earth as a resource was immeasurably greater than any conceivable human activity, and thus could support human activity essentially without limit. Contrarian predictions that resource exhaustion would limit population growth, such as those of the nineteenth-century British economist Thomas Malthus, have not been borne out because resource substitutions and new technology removed (temporarily) some of the limits.33 Today the scale of human activity is so large, however, that damaging effects are no longer local, but global and incipiently catastrophic. Nevertheless, patterns of culture change slowly, and because humans tend to think in a linear fashion, a large segment of the population (and apparently all economic determinists) believe in either an inexhaustible Earth, or in the unlimited potential of human capital.Most arguments about economic policy have, at their core, conflicting presuppositions about limits. Limited sources include biodiversity, cultivatable land, minerals, and energy; limited sinks include the ability of global ecosystems to accommodate the solid, liquid, and gaseous waste products of human activity.

11 Judd W. Patton, "Is there a Christian Political Economy?" Journal Of Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (1991): 11-30. 31 Oleg Zinam, "Toward a Normative Economic Metaparadigm," Journal of Interdisciplinan, Studies 3 (1991): pp. 51-72. 32 Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of OurEcological Crisis," Science 155 (10 March 1967): 1203-07; Francis A. Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1970). 33 The Energy-Environment Connection, ed. Jack Hollander (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992). See the introduction by the editor, pp. xv-xxvi.

The most visible example from academia of the clash of viewpoints regarding limits is the long-standing debate in the popular media between economist Julian Simon of Harvard and bioscientist Paul Ehrlich of Stanford. These bitter adversaries have argued in the "op-ed" pages and transacted wagers regarding evidences for their convictionS.31 Simon cites historical evidence to argue that human ingenuity will remove all limits to growth, whereas Ehrlich counters that we are on course to resource exhaustion and ecological catastrophe.

Whether world population peaks at two, or five times present magnitude is of direct significance for land-use management .35 The increment in worldwide food production produced by the "green revolution" has peaked, so that absent a technological breakthrough-such as by genetic engineering-and a second green revolution, agricultural land must be preserved for food production. However, the greatest constraint, or limit, to the deurbanization process (suburbanization, ex-urbanization, and ruralization) will be indirect: namely, energy use. De-urbanization locks us ever further into the energy-intengive, diffuse (highway-based/ low density) transportation system. For now and into the foreseeable future, we have to use petroleum hydrocarbon fuels. A much more secure future can be achieved by managing land as a finite resource and utilizing it efficiently.36 Thus, concentration of people and commerce in cities at once preserves greenfields and reduces energy use.37

Arguments for and against a "free market" are value-laden, as are the related topics of government participation in the market, the balance of individual liberty against the need for the public good, and the importance of preservation

34 Simon, "Finite Doesn't Fit Here"; Julian L. Simon, "Earth's Doomsayers are Wrong,"San Francisco Chronicle, 12 May 1995; Paul Ehrlich and Stephen Schneider, "A $15,000 Counter- offer," San Francisco Chronicle, 18 May 1995. @ 35 Toynbee, "Cities in History"; John. P. Holdren, "Energy Agenda for the 1990s," in Jack Hollander. ed, The Energy-Environment Connection (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992), pp. 378-91. 36 "Geographical Mobility"; Hayward, "Land-Use Planners Don't Understand Urban Com- plexities"; Barry H. Minkin, Future in Sight (New York: MacMillan, 1995); excerpted in "A More Shocking Future," Hemispheres, November 1995, pp. 47-52. 37 In all of this planning, we must make cities habitable places. Cities offer the basis for development of culture and community: performing ans, vibrant neighborhoods, and even zoos are part of the cultural richness available only in cities! Jane Jacobs argues that heterogeneity and variety in cities can produce vitality if these variables are understood and nourished (Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities [New York: Random House, 19931). Arnold Toynbee wrote that "close settlement does not constitute a city unless the inhabitants ... are conscious of having a corporate social life ... a genuine comniunity ... at least the rudiments of a soul" (Toynbee, "Cities in History," p. 13).

vs. the benefits of development. Economic conservatives tend to equate urban decay to a family values issue (i.e., urbanites are in the condition they are in because of their moral shortcomings); land-use planning is socialist and elitist; environmentalism costs jobs; and cities are becoming obsolete. Advocates of this perspective argue for an optimistic view of human capital, emphasizing the creative and productive dimensions of human endeavor and supporting the use of technology to improve the human condition.

In contrast, many environmentalists and political liberals tend to focus on systems and structures emphasizing the consumption and pollution dimensions of human activity, and tend to be suspicious of technology. They argue that urban decay is an economic injustice (because only those who can afford to, leave and take capital with them); land-use planning is too important to be left to market forces, and, moreover, the market isn't "free"; the environmental industry will create jobs and wealth (the jobs are just different from the ones that they replace); and cities are necessary and beneficial.

However, none of these pragmatic arguments provide the needed compelling ethic, which 1-in agreement with Sagan-believe requires a spiritual foundation. Contrary to Sagan, however, I expect the belief system, be objectively true. Steven Bouma-Prediger has identified certain virtues that he determined to be necessary for an ethic of "creation care."38 Moreover, Troy Hartley has identified four "philosophical" and seven "world view" frameworks that purport to offer the values required for environmental ethics.39 Hartley concluded that the concept of environmental justice can be found in many ethical systems, world views, and religions, but that the seven religious world views lack the dimension of distributive (economic) justice.40 With respect to the Judeo-Christian tradition at least, this conclusion is unwarranted, because the theology of distributive justice has been well developed.41 Hartley also failed to recognize an eighth religious world view: economic determinism. Rigid adherence to economic determinism-i.e., the belief that the free market is guided by an invisible hand to bring about the best outcome overall-is a religious perspective. It consists of tenacious, enduring trust in a benevolent but unknown force.

To the extent that they -value the human condition in addition to nature, more than one religion or world view may indeed offer the required multidimensional (environmental, social, and economic) ethical framework. Essential elements of the human condition include life sustenance, equity, justice, dignity and self-worth, freedom, and participation by individuals in the decisions that affect

11 Bouma-Prediger, "Creation Care and Character." 39 Troy W. Hartley, "Environmental Justice: An Environmental Civil Rights Value Acceptable to All World Views," Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 277-89. 40 Sagan, "to Avert a Common Danger." 41 Robert G. Clouse, ed., Wealth and Poverty: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984); Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984); Ronald Sider, Cry Justice (Downers Grove, Ill.: lntervarsity Press, 1980).

them." Religious systems that value nature above the human condition will not suffice. Pantheistic systems-the concept that everything is spiritually autonomous and equal also will not suffice because it is obvious in practice that humans really do have a special role in nature that nothing else has.43

There is no consensus biblical approach to economics, environment, and public policy. Claims for biblical political economy range from free market capital- ism to socialism.' Claims for biblical environmental ethics range from "wise use" (a property-rights platform) to earth keeping and creation care .45 Evangelicals especially struggle to prioritize biblical economics and environmental care against apocalyptic theology and the resultant urgency of evangelism. Jim Ball identifies four separate views of biblical stewardship within that sector of the Christian faith alone. 16 My understanding of Judeo-Christian stewardship is that the Earth "groans" under environmental damage caused by humans, and that our responsibility for creation care includes repair of the damage in addition to the more familiar protection objective.

The biblical world view does satisfy the requirements set forth above for an acceptable ethical system for land use: relationships among humans are defined in addition to relationships between humans and nature.47 Nature is valued not only because God the creator values it, but also because a healthy environment helps assure the well-being of all. The Bible also teaches that God loves cities because people are concentrated therein; eventually He will dwell with His followers in a "perfect city." Thus, cities are endorsed in addition to creation care, and so active participation in the care of cities is also mandated.

DECISION CRITERIA WITH ETHICS

Markets may be effective for selecting among available options where there are many substitutes that can be exploited with low social cost trade-offs among resources. In other words, without government intervention, the market is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Where substitutes for resources are few and the social cost of exploitation is high, direct government intervention is 42

Harry Spaling and Annette Dekker, "Cultural Sustainable Development: Concepts and Principles," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48 (1996): 230-40. 41 Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man. ' Clouse, Wealth and Poverty; Cobb, Sustaining the Common Good; Nash, "Subjective Theory of Economic Value"; Patton, "Christian Political Economy"; Ramsay, "Redeeming the City"; Sider, Rich Christians. I R. J. Berry, Creation and the Environment, Science and Christian Belief 7 (1995): 21-43; Fred Van Dyke, David C. Mahon, Joseph K. Sheldon, and Raymond H. Brand, Redeeming Creation: The Bibical Basis for Environmental Stewardship (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996). 46 Jim Ball, "The Use of Ecology in the Evangelical Protestant Response to the Ecological Crisis," Perspective on Science and Christian Faith 50 (1998): 32-39. Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man.

needed.48 Any proposed action by industry, government, or developer which effects greenfield loss and/or brownfield creation should first be evaluated in terms of relative social costs vs. the degree of substitutability for the resources consumed.4' Four domains can be "mapped" in this space: (1) high social cost and total absence of substitutes (this domain is the quadrant of greatest importance); (2) high social cost but many opportunities for substitution; (3) low social cost and few substitutes, but because the social costs are low (insofar as present understanding allows), the lack of alternatives is of no concern; (4) low social cost and many opportunities for substitution. Conditions (2)-(4) are of less or no concern because the social costs of the proposed action are low, or if costs are high, alternatives are available. In these quadrants no clash of values need occur between environmentalists and economic determinists. It is the first quadrant-high social cost and absence of substitutes-which maps situations where proposed actions should be reconsidered and value judgments must be invoked to determine the outcome.

For de-urbanization and its associated problems, social costs would be a loss of greenfields, an increase in petroleum consumption, urban decline, and an emergence of brownfields. Substitutability would involve, for example, communication to replace cities as suggested by Gilder 5O and others, pressing marginal land into agricultural production, or creating new wildlife habitat in place of habitat lost to development. Uncertainty in the decision process derives from finite possibilities for substitution, unknown or unpredictable long-lived social and environmental costs of the proposed action, and disagreement about the present value or discounted value of land, biodiversity, and a healthy, safe environment.

APPLICATIONS

The Environmental Protection Agency has a program to address the environmental, social, and economic problems associated with urban brownfields. The program is called the "Brownfields Economic Development Initiative" (BEDI).' I Its objectives, attributes, and processes should be acceptable to most of the political spectrum, but unfortunately, some public figures reject or ignore the program on the basis of free market ideology.

48 Deanna J. Richards, Braden R. Allenby, and Robert A. Frosch, "Overview and Perspective," in The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, ed. Braden Allenby and Deanna Richards (Washing- ton, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1994), pp. 1-23. 41 pip .Tre Crosson and Michael Toman, "Economics and Sustainable Development," in Allenby and Richards, The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, pp. 90-97. 50 Guilder, Life after Television. 5 1"Environmental Justice Strategy," in Executive Order 12898, EPA-200-R-95-002, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, April 1995; Environmental Justice Annual Report 1995, EPA-200-R-95-003, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, April 1995.

The BEDI establishes three major thrusts: cleanup and liability protection, public/private partnerships, and implementation of pilot projects. The first element removes the impossible cleanup to background requirement and thus permits achievable and affordable remediation. Cleanup standards can be flexible and based on intended uses. For example, a parking lot can tolerate more residual contamination than a playground. If mobility of subsurface contamination does not threaten groundwater, containment can be tolerated in place of removal. This approach has enabled EPA to remove 24,000 sites from the federal superfund list and the requirement for government-supported remediation. Because legislation has been enacted to indemnify both lenders and buyers, both are more inclined to become involved in the remediation for anticipated economic return.

Federal, state, and local agencies are encouraged to get involved in the BEDI projects. The voice of the community is actively solicited so that an environ- mental justice dimension is incorporated. This dimension of BEDI was developed by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, an organization convened by the EPA expressly to assure participation of the affected communities in BEDI. 52 Both industrial and financial sectors are solicited as well (although no direct government funds are made available to them); and community colleges are encouraged to provide education and job training oriented toward the incoming industries. Finally, grants of about $200,000, each are provided, on a competitive basis, for local governments to evaluate options and catalyze the process. The first pilot project grant was awarded in November 1993; by January 1997, the number had risen to seventy-six. Thirty- nine of these pilots are national, sponsored by the Federal EPA, and the rest are regional. Six are in the San Francisco Bay Area, including two in the Emeryville and Richmond areas described in the introduction.

New technologies are emerging from government-sponsored R&D (by EPA and the departments of Defense and Energy) which promise to facilitate remediation of brownflelds by providing rapid surveillance and characterization of contaminants, efficient removal of contaminated soil, effective in-situ remediation, and safe (e.g., dust-free) decontamination and dismantlement of structures. For example, simultaneous interrogation by electromagnetic and seismic interrogation might permit creation of a three-dimensional quantitative image of a deep contamination plume. Such a capability could replace the present laborious and slow process of characterization by core drilling and computer modeling. New technologies for remediation include bioventing, in which air is pumped through the soil to evaporate or oxidize organics; in-situ bioremediation, in which nutrients are percolated into the soil so that resident microorganisms will digest the contaminants; zero-valent reduction of

12 Lee, "Environinental Justice."

contaminants into carbon dioxide and hydrogen by drawing them through an iron membrane; and phytoremediation, which is the utilization of plant systems to draw up contaminants through their roots. Improved methods for decontamination of structures include removal of asbestos, lead-bearing paints, and contaminated concrete without creation of secondary aerosols or liquids.

The Brownfields Economic Development Initiative is not overtly religious; however, its objectives-redemption and justice-are consistent with the ethical framework developed above. Furthermore, there is a role for the church. Community organization in the inner cities today is led by the church.13 Only the church has sufficient moral and institutional presence in distressed urban neighborhoods to spearhead a return to participatory democracy and urban revitalization. An excellent illustration is underway in Los Angeles, where, under the leadership of Bishop Charles Blake, the West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ has established the West Angeles Community Development Corporation (CDC). Under the motto "building a better community," West Angeles CDC is pursuing training and community assistance, economic development, emergency services, adult education, community legal services, and housing development. Within the economic development initiative, a project called the Integrated Remediation Technology Demonstration Project has brought together public and private sector partners to clean up contaminated soils in the redevelopment projects they are fostering. Contaminants include solvents from a former dry cleaning establishment and petroleum products from a former service station. 54

In the introduction to this article, I offered a disclaimer, suggesting that the diagnosis and remedy may be limited to the United States. However, the result may be global after all. Certainly the generalized ethical framework transcends particular nationalities and religious perspectives. The author finds the required elements of the framework within the biblical world view (properly interpreted, of course); nevertheless, readers may find them within other belief systems. The United Nations has adopted environmental stewardship as a program, assigning the title of "Global Environmental Citizenship." 51 The literature of the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) abounds with appeals to the ethical and spiritual responsibility of humans to support sustainable development and to protect all life on Earth (I assume that this appeal excludes such pathogens as salmonella, tuberculosis, and smallpox). In this organization too, pragmatism is inadequate.

53 Ramsay, "Redeeming the City." 54 Paul Turner, Director of Economic Development, West Angeles Community Development Corporation, 3045 W. Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016. 11 Alicia Barcena, "Global Environmental Citizenship," United Nations Environmental Pro- gram, http://www.ourplanet.com/txtversn/85/barcena.html.

CLOSURE

I have argued that public and private sectors must act cooperatively to stem and reverse the trend toward decline of our urban areas and consumption of greenfields. The pragmatic reason for such action is that because cities are the most efficient organizations for human enterprise, they will become mandatory in the future. There will be neither space nor petroleum for all to live in low-density suburbs or rural areas. Fossil fuels supply less than ninety percent of the world's energy today; with the two-thirds of the world at a per-capita consumption about one-tenth of first-world consumption. There is no possibility that the two-thirds world can aspire to a tenfold increase in per capita energy consumption, unless nuclear is admitted as a option. However, high population density in urban areas permits efficiency and need not equate to grimness. Creative planning can mold variety and diversity into vibrant human habitat.56

Reversing the momentum of the problem of land use will require public/ private cooperative programs and much more. It will require a major change in present paradigms of development, together with the world views that defend them. The ethical reasons for protecting greenfields and reclaiming brownfields are based upon valuing nature and valuing human life and well-being. Economic justice is required, but pantheism is not.

The U.S. is in transition from a frontier society (nature as adversary; humans as rugged individualists) to an urbanized society (sustainable development; humans as citizens in communities). Change is needed in the attitude of land- owners away from emphasis on property rights to more emphasis on steward- ship; toward viewing their automobiles more as transportation and less as sources of freedom and self-expression; and toward recovery of public civility and a sense of the common good. In-depth discussion of the role of civility in the decline of cities is beyond the scope of this paper. Economic determinists tend to claim that crime is the result of failed liberal policies. However, as employment rose during the 1990s, crime decreased nationwide, including the inner cities. To this writer, the evidence shows that when employment and vitality are present, the cities flourish-or at least they have a chance to flourish. Nevertheless, as civility declines in our culture, people want fewer neighbors and less interactions. But what is cause, and what is effect? I attribute decline in civility to exaltation of individual rights, mindless pursuit of material goods, and isolation as consequence of an automobile-based decentralized society. Regardless of the cause, before our cities can be made more attractive to suburbanites, we have to begin thinking anew about living in communities.

56 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. See n.37.