Environmental Justice and the Sustainable City · Environmental justice and social justice are seen as intrinsically connected in such analyses. In this article, both are treated

Environmental Justice and the Sustainable CityGraham Haughton

ABSTRACT

As the debate on sustainable development andenvironmental justice has gathered momen-tum, considerable attention has been paid toidentifying key principles. In this paper, Ihighlight a number of core principles andthen move on to examine differing styles ofpolicy approach, which have gained favoramong different sources, for moving towardthe sustainable city from market-based neo-liberal reformism to deep green ecologicallycentered approaches. I highlight four broadcategories of approach to sustainable urbandevelopment and begin linking those to thecore principles of sustainable development.

Graham Haughton is a professor In the Centrefor Urban Development and EnvironmentalManagement at Leeds Metropolitan University,U. K, [email protected]. uk.

Recent years have seen a re-emergent interest in issues surrounding social justiceand environmental justice, with the two increasingly seen as inter-linked(Friedmann 1989; Harvey 1992; Hofrichter 1993; Smith 1994; Hay 1995; seeHarvey 1973 and Berry and Steiker 1974 for earlier discussions). This resurgentinterest in justice issues has been accompanied by a more general interest in norma-tive theoretical approaches within planning and geography, with detailed examina-tion of values (rights, ethics, quality of life) being reinserted with renewed confi-dence into recent work within these disciplines (Beatley 1994; Bourne 1996; Smith1997; Sayer and Storper 1997). The need to reevaluate the ethical underpinnings ofpolicy and analysis has been given added impetus by the emergence of sustainabledevelopment debates. Lipietz (1996), for instance, argues that the greatest achieve-ment of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and related conferences may well be the wide-

spread popular and political acknowledgment of the need for &dquo;new rights and obli-gations to be incorporated within social norms,&dquo; involving &dquo;... the recognition, atfirst moral, of new rights, new bearers of rights and of new objects of rights&dquo; (223).In this view, the discourse of sustainable development has enlarged the consider-ation of rights through its explicit attention to the rights of future generations andof present-day socially marginalized groups and also to the need to consider other(nonhuman) dimensions of the natural world as having rights to continued exist-ence, as recognized in biodiversity treaties.

Reflecting theoretical debates over local-global dimensions of economic restruc-turing, social- and environmental-justice debates have involved equity issues at arange of scales, from the local to the global. Debates have also involved the broadereconomic, social, and political systems that foster and perpetuate inequalities be-tween different social groups and different geographic areas. In environmentalterms, this requires looking both at systems that generate environmentally degrad-ing activities and also at differential access to environmental goods and environmen-tal bads, notably as expressed in differential impacts on different social groups, sec-tors, and geographical areas. A particularly powerful illustration is provided by envi-ronmental racism debates, which have highlighted how, in cases such as the concen-tration of toxic waste incineration plants found in poor areas, areas with large con-centrations of people of color have disproportionately experienced adverse impactsin many instances (Bullard 1990, 1993). Environmental justice and social justiceare seen as intrinsically connected in such analyses. In this article, both are treatedby addressing the underlying systemic causes of injustice and by addressing the moretraditional distributive justice concerns of seeking to redress inequalities of out-come. This is important, since some commentators have begun to question whethera narrow equity concern with distributional aims (e.g., decisions on who comes tobe most polluted and where) may have the unintended perverse effect of overshad-

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owing more broadly constituted justice concerns by address-ing underlying structural issues-that is, engaging with sys-tems to reduce or prevent pollution rather than distribute itmore equitably (Young 1990; Pullido 1994; Heiman 1996;Lake 1996).

In this article, I set out a small number of linked prin-ciples for sustainable development and then move on to as-sess how four different sets of approaches to creating a sus-tainable city measure up against them. One of the basic pre-mises of the analysis here is that a sustainable city cannot beachieved purely in internal terms: A sustainable city is essen-tially one that contributes effectively to the global aims ofsustainable development, where sustainable development isseen as much as a process as an end-product. With theemergence of ever-thickening and extending patterns of glo-bal economic trading, and increasingly global exchanges ofenvironmental resources and waste streams, it is futile andindeed virtually meaningless to attempt to create a sustain-able city in isolation from its broader hinterland area. More-over, it is necessary to see that cities make other contribu-

tions to global well-being that make a purely local focus ontheir environmental impacts potentially unhelpful. Or toput it another way, a densely developed, highly populatedcity could well be deemed unsustainable if looked at solely atthe local level, in terms of its dependence on the appropri-ated environmental assets of other regions. Alternatively, ata regional or even global scale, this form of city may be pref-erable to sprawling, low density, low-level developments,consuming considerable agricultural land and requiring con-siderable energy for transportation between dispersed activi-ties. In a global sense, then, a high-density city that over-crowds and displaces the already-transformed environmentmay be preferable to lower-density forms of urban develop-ment where, at the local level, nature survives better. In part,judgments on such issues depend on whether a weak orstrong definition of sustainability is adopted-that is, theextent to which it is seen as acceptable to replace naturalcapital with human capital and, in particular, the approachtaken to preserving critical natural stocks. Each of the fourapproaches to sustainable urban development outlined be-low embodies a different perspective in this respect, al-though the issues are not teased out in full here. The em-phasis is on equity and justice issues. In urban managementterms, these tensions in defining what the sustainable city is,or might be, are important in guiding attention to the needto look at the underlying philosophical bases of local actionsin support of sustainable development, while directing at-tention to look globally as well as locally when assessing theoverall impacts of policies in support of sustainable urbandevelopment.

It is valuable to begin by elaborating on what sustainabledevelopment actually means and on some of its tensions. Ul-timately, sustainable development involves the long-termsurvival of the planet and its processes of dynamic evolution,

including the wide range of species that currently live on it,not least humankind. For humans, it specifically requiresachieving a position that allows us to live in harmony withthe rest of the planet, so that we neither destroy ourselvesnor the systems that support lifeforms. The essential threatto sustainable development is that the human species is at-tempting to live beyond the capacity of the earth to sustainboth humans and other species, most notably as we destroythe natural balance of critical natural protective systems,from depletion of the ozone layer to the creation of thegreenhouse effect. Moving toward sustainable developmentrequires economic and social systems that encourage envi-ronmental stewardship of resources for the long term, ac-knowledging the interdependency of social justice, eco-nomic well-being, and environmental stewardship. The so-cial dimension is critical since the unjust society is unlikelyto be sustainable in environmental or economic terms; thesocial tensions that are created undermine the recognition ofreciprocal rights and obligations, leading to environmentaldegradation and ultimately to political breakdown.The tensions between economic development and envi-

ronmental stewardship are a central feature of the sustain-able development debate, with controversy surrounding theBrundtland Commission’s (WCED 1987) declared viewthat economic development is essential to meeting the socialgoals of sustainable development. The critics of this viewhold that economic growth within the currently dominantmarket-driven mode is largely responsible for environmentaldegradation; therefore we need to question whether contin-ued economic expansion of this type is either desirable oracceptable (Seabrook 1990; O’Connor 1993, 1994). It isprecisely because the Bruntdland Commission’s growth-compatible vision of sustainable development version ismore politically palatable that it has gained so much politi-cal support, while more radical views have remained a

marginalized part of the sustainable development discourse.This brings the analysis back to the varying possible in-

terpretations of sustainable development: these have beendescribed as running along a spectrum from &dquo;very weak&dquo; or&dquo;light green&dquo; versions to &dquo;very strong&dquo; or &dquo;deep green&dquo; in-terpretations (Turner, Pearce, and Bateman 1994). Propo-nents of the weak version are held to have a largely anthro-pocentric world view, which sees considerable scope fortechnological solutions to environmental problems, and inparticular for the substitutability of natural capital with hu-man capital, for instance replacing fossil fuel-derived energywith new technologies for creating nuclear energy or cap-turing tidal energy. Versions of environmentalism that sup-port sustainable profits or sustainable accumulation by pri-vate enterprises are generally regarded as light green in thatthey tinker at the edges of the existing system of accumula-tion, rather than seek radical transformations in favor of

preserving natural assets.By contrast, proponents of deep green sustainability views



235

tend to emphasize that market-led systems of capitalistgrowth reductively consign nature to a role of mere marketinputs or outputs, limited only by the capacity of the marketto make profits out of these natural assets, in the processinevitably leading to environmental degradation. The strongversion of sustainability holds a more nature-centered worldview, which seeks to prevent destruction of natural assets

beyond their regenerative capacities by reducing overall con-sumption levels and to avoid unnecessary high risks associ-ated with some untested technological solutions. In particu-lar, the strong sustainability perspective argues againstwholesale substitutability of natural with human assets, in-volving a more widely constructed definition of criticalnatural stocks, that is, those natural assets which cannot beused beyond their natural regenerative capacities withoutmajor damage to the integrity of ecosystems.

In order to move toward sustainable development, it isessential to address the way in which our current political,economic, and social systems allow for widespread cost-transfer, where many of the negative environmental and re-lated impacts of the activity of a person, company, or evenregion are in effect displaced elsewhere (Haughton 1998).At the urban level, resource demands can exercise major im-pacts on other areas, for instance in the valleys where reser-voirs are built to supply cities, while urban pollution of wa-ter can have negative impacts on downstream users andnatural aquatic ecosystems. We have currently evolved so-phisticated systems for hiding the deleterious effects of ourbehavior patterns, while embarking on a series of risky tech-nology-driven projects without full consideration andknowledge of their impacts (from the introduction of CFCsto the development of nuclear energy). Indeed, it can evenbe argued that much of the recent growth of western capital-ism can be traced to the ability of corporations (and govern-ments) to externalize more and more of their social and en-vironmental costs in pursuit of cost-cutting competitivegains, even at the same time as achieving efficiencies in en-ergy and raw material usage (O’Connor 1991; O’Connor1993). Such externalities can effectively divorce people,businesses, and governments from responsibility for theiractions, fostering irresponsible behavior patterns. Extendingrights and obligations to ensure that externalities arebrought into the decision-making frame, whether throughthe market mechanism (e.g., via pricing mechanisms such asgreen taxes), legal sanction, or other means, is essential tomoving away from current patterns of widespread profligacyin resource usage and unthinking disposal of wastes.At two levels, then, we need to change our ways. Firstly,

we need improved political, economic, regulatory, and legalsystems allied to enhanced information and educational sys-tems to bring home to individuals and groups the global,long-term impacts of their activities. Secondly, and related,we need to devise systems to ensure that those responsiblefor making environmental demands assume the main re-

sponsibility for the consequences of their activity-theyshould not expect other people, other species, or otherplaces to absorb the associated costs of environmental andsocial breakdown. New systems are needed, systems that not

only require those who cause environmental problems toshare in their remediation but that also to require changes inbehavior patterns to reduce or halt environmentally degrad-ing activities. Sustainable development, then, is about recog-nizing and accepting our responsibilities not just for wherewe live, but more widely for the environment at a globalscale. In order to do this we need to look beyond the envi-ronment itself, to the broader economic, social, and politicalsystems within which human decisions are made. Funda-

mentally, sustainable development requires not just alteringbehavior patterns in relation to the environment, but about

changing the broader systems that shape human behavior.

0 EQUITY PRINCIPLES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTIn trying to establish what it is that makes a concern for

sustainable development different from the existing con-cerns of environmental planning, it is helpful to highlightfive interconnected equity principles that move to centerplace in any discussion of sustainable development, repre-senting the essential environmental justice dimension of theconcept. I would argue strongly that if these equity condi-tions are not addressed singly and collectively, then inevita-bly the ability to move toward sustainable development willbe critically undermined. This said, each of these equityprinciples represents contestable goals, since no clear defini-tive state of final achievement recognizable by all is everlikely to occur-it is the process of moving toward them, ofchanging human practices in their spirit, which is impor-tant, not some elusive readily quantifiable end-goal. Thisinitial analysis provides the beginnings of a normativeframework for environmental justice against which it is pos-sible to evaluate approaches to fostering the sustainable city,a task which is undertaken in subsequent sections.

Firstly, there is the principle of intergenerational equity, orthe principle of futurity as it is sometimes known. This isperhaps the most widely acknowledged ingredient of sus-tainable development, drawing from the Brundtland defini-tion of sustainable development as being &dquo;developmentwhich meets the needs of the present without compromisingthe ability of future generations to meet their own needs&dquo;(WCED 1987, 43). A second principle is also alluded to inthis statement, and more fully elsewhere in the Brundtlandreport: that of intra-generational equity or, more generally,contemporary social equity or social justice. As discussedearlier, since equity and justice can be argued to have differ-ent emphases for some commentators, the emphasis here ison the wider conception of social justice-that is, seeking toaddress the underlying causes of social injustice, not simplydealing with redistributive measures. While not withoutsome ambiguity, it is possible to introduce these two prin-



236

ciples here just briefly, since they have been so fully devel-oped elsewhere in the literature (see, for instance, WCED1987; Haughton and Hunter 1994).The third key principle for sustainable development is

that of geographical equity, or transfrontier responsibility.Transfrontier responsibility requires that local policiesshould be geared to resolving global as well as local environ-mental problems. All too often, decision-makers adopt aparochial concern for protecting localized corporate or envi-ronmental interests while effectively ignoring external im-pacts of their decisions (Beatley 1991). Of particular con-cern is that, too often, external impacts that affect areas out-side the particular jurisdictional domain of the host pollutercan be ignored if the polluter feels no responsibility for therecipient area and is beyond formal systems of legal sanc-tion, such as liability to pay compensation. In a variant ofthe old saw &dquo;out of sight, out of mind,&dquo; activities are effec-tively encouraged when they degrade distant areas, creatinguncompensated costs passed on to someone or somewhereelse. The further afield they are, the more administrativelyand politically separate their legal system, the easier it is toperpetrate such transfers of costs.

Geographical equity concerns are apparent from theneighborhood level to the global, from issues of environ-mental dumping and concern over environmental racism totransfrontier acid deposition and degradation of the Amazonrainforests. As consumers, when we have information about

products of tropical rainforests, whether they are taken froma sustainably managed resource or a short-term commercialpillaging of an area, we can all take part in this process. Thepolicy need is to go beyond current systems to ensure thatenvironmental information is more widely available and thatsystems are in place to prevent trade in resources from non-sustainable sources. In addressing these concerns, it is essen-tial to ensure that political or jurisdictional boundaries arenot used to shield individuals, companies, and governmentsfrom the negative impacts of their activities, as argued in thefirst section of this paper.

This in turn relates to a fourth principle, that of proce-dural equity. This principle holds that regulatory and partici-patory systems should be devised and applied to ensure thatall people are treated openly and fairly. In its narrowest in-terpretation, this concern with procedural equity is appliedsolely within a particular legal jurisdiction, which can createproblems in an increasingly globalized economy and in anera when environmental impacts are increasingly large-scale,paying no regard to political boundaries. Pulido (1994), forinstance, charts the way in which Southwestern U.S. firmshave sought to evade local environmental regulations bythreatening to move across the border to Mexico, effectivelytransferring the problem rather than solving it. In thepresent broader definition of procedural equity, which linksclosely to geographical equity, a central concern is that po-litical boundaries should not be used to allow polluters to be

immune from prosecution by affected people in other juris-dictions. Those affected by pollution in other countries, forinstance, should have the same rights to legal standing todefend themselves against polluters as those in the hostcountry would (Haughton and Hunter 1994). Critical tomaking this form of equity operational is a right of equalaccess to information and a more general right of access toinformation for all interested parties on activities which ex-ert deleterious environmental impacts, locally and globally.Added to this is a concern over which decision-making pro-cesses procedural equity might cover, given that it would behighly truncated to define it solely as the equitable distribu-tion of environmental burdens. Procedural equity requiresan extended definition that encompasses engagement with&dquo;the gamut of prior decisions affecting the production ofcosts and benefits to be distributed&dquo; (Lake 1996, 164-166).The concern with procedural equity here also covers what

is sometimes referred to as the principle of participation. Ingeneral, I have tended to be cautious about adopting this asa separate principle, reflecting my deep concern that someforms of participation can undermine rather than supportdemocratic processes of engagement, for instance middle-class community groups lobbying to prevent homes for thementally ill opening in their neighborhoods, or tenaciousmavericks who seek to usurp community participationchannels for narrow sectarian interests or even to pursuepersonal grudges and vendettas. Alternatively, it is clear thatparticipation is central to achieving effective and sustainableprocesses of regeneration, owned and mobilized by the gen-eral public as well as state authorities.

Reflecting these concerns, it is possible to argue that pro-cedural equity is about much more than legalistic and bu-reaucratic procedures for establishing and enforcing obliga-tions and rights. It also needs to embrace wider processes ofpublic engagement, where multiple democratic and partici-pative forms and channels are brought into play to fosterparticipation and engagement with processes of change.People need an appropriate framework of democratic politi-cal processes and responsibilities, ranging from the local,urban, regional and national scales, to multinational deci-sion-making bodies. This suggests that all people shouldhave access at different points into public decision-makingprocesses (in particular at the junction of public and privatedecision making, for instance over corporations siting haz-ardous waste facilities). This requires a balancing of demo-cratic and participative methods of engagement with deci-sion making, rather than a displacement of necessary demo-cratic responsibilities by other bodies.The earlier discussion on different interpretations of sus-

tainable development contrasted those who hold whatmight be termed largely anthropocentric views with thoseholding more nature-centered values. Following on fromthis is inter-species equity, which places the survival of otherspecies on an equal basis to the survival of humans. This is



237

not to suggest the moral equivalence of humans with otherlifeforms, rather to highlight the critical importance of pre-serving ecosystem integrity and maintaining biodiversity.Other species have intrinsic rights, although these are notnecessarily the same as those of humans. In a sense then,the argument is that nature has certain rights, while hu-mans also have obligations, to nature and to each other, toensure that individual animal species and indeed whole eco-systems are not degraded to the point of non-sustainability.It is in this latter sense that I incorporate a concern withinter-species equity here, to reflect a broader concern withenvironmental stewardship.

0 FOUR APPROACHES TO ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLEURBAN DEVELOPMENT

The literature on sustainable urban development in West-ern nations can be broadly categorized into four approaches.These approaches, or models, are far from being mutuallyexclusive, and indeed the advocates of the different ap-proaches at times appear to be in ideological conflict witheach other. In reality, they share a fairly strong base of com-mon assumptions and common policy directions. This said,each approach has its own distinctive traits, its own ways ofrationalizing its policy stances, and its own sets of prioritiesfor how a city should be both laid out and managed. In thissense, each model in fact embodies distinctive assumptionsof what creates non-sustainable behavior patterns in citiesand more broadly, and from this how policies in support ofsustainable urban development should be framed.

Self Reliant Cities

The self-reliant city approach centers on attempts to re-duce the negative external impacts of a city beyond its ownbioregion, seeking to: reduce overall resource consumption;use local resources where possible; develop renewable re-source-based consumption habits, always in a sustainablefashion; minimize waste streams; and deal with pollution insitu rather than sending it to other regions (Morris 1982,1990). While coming in many guises, perhaps the most dis-tinctive variants of the self-reliant city are those propoundedby West Coast bioregionalists in the U.S. The bioregion isusually seen as a central construct, replacing artificial politi-cal boundaries with natural boundaries, based typically onriver catchment areas, geological features, or distinctive eco-system types, although it is readily conceded that preciseboundaries are usually difficult to define (Register 1987;Andruss et al. 1990). Urbanization in a bioregional contextis smaller in scale and more decentralized, while calling forgreater efforts to design with nature. Such designs bring na-ture into the city, from open spaces to urban forests androof gardens.The politics of the bioregion are similarly envisaged as

more decentralized and openly participative than conven-

tional politics (Bookchin 1974, 1980, 1992; Berg 1990),bringing a direct concern with the &dquo;equity of engagement&dquo;issues discussed earlier. Callenbach’s (1975) novel Ecotopia,for instance, talks of decisions being arrived at only by de-bate and consensus, with no formal voting. Social equityissues are a dominant theme, encouraging people to realizetheir full potential and accept the need to act responsiblytoward others and toward the natural environment. In thisversion of the self-reliant city, the intention is to buildecocities that both blend into their natural environment andenhance &dquo;life, beauty and equity&dquo; (Register 1987, 13). Quiteexplicitly, this critique holds that cities &dquo;built for maximum

profit... or to confer maximum wealth on all citizensequally&dquo; (13) cannot emerge as ecocities. The distinctiveapproach to inter-species equity becomes one of respectingthe need to preserve external habitats and also to encouragea more complex urban ecology, where cities are designed to&dquo;reestablish or permit natural life forms to coexist with thecity by giving them sizable slices of their natural habitataround the city (greenbelt instead of suburbia), and withinit (in parks, along restored creeks and shorelines)&dquo; (Register1987, 18). A preservationist stance to critical natural re-sources dominates, together with a commitment to encour-aging biodiversity at all spatial scales, based on a belief thatnatural ecosystems tend toward complexity, characterized byincreasing numbers of lifeforms complexly interrelated. Thisis carried forward into a widely held belief that cities need toemulate this complexity by fostering environmental, social,and economic diversity, avoiding social and economic mo-nocultures as much as environmental ones.

Given its considerable political agenda for fundamentalinstitutional transformation in the quest for sustainability,the self-reliant city is the most radical of the approaches out-lined here. The main problem with this approach is the dan-ger of taking regional autarky to unacceptable levels.Wallner, Narodoslawsky, and Moser (1996, 1770) capturesomething of this in their discussion of &dquo;islands ofsustainability,&dquo; arguing that cities need to balance the needto build internally and connect externally, since areas thatare wholly self-reliant may survive but &dquo;do not make anycontribution to the evolution of the whole economic systemtowards sustainability,&dquo; neither learning from nor sharingwith other regions. Alternatively, the great strength of theself-reliant approach is its explicit concern with equity is-sues. In particular, relative to the other models of sustain-able urban development, what the self-reliant city approachadds is a clear emphasis on inter-species equity, proceduralequity, and also social equity, bringing these to the forefrontof both problem diagnosis and the processes of devisingpolicies for the sustainable city.

Redesigning CitiesThis is perhaps the dominant approach adopted by most

Western planners and architects. In essence, the environ-



238

mental problems of cities are seen to be linked intrinsically topoor design of the urban fabric, in particular 20th-centuryadditions predicated on the assumption of cheap and readilyavailable fossil fuels for homes, work, and transport. Of specialconcern are the problems associated with the rise of the motorvehicle, from the spread of low-density residential develop-ment to the need to build substantial specialized infrastructure,including road systems and parking lots. From this perspec-tive, a central feature of moving toward sustainable develop-ment has to be the redesigning of the city, including the verylayout of the city at the regional scale-should we opt for con-centrated decentralization (e.g., in new towns), for corridors ofurban expansion, or for continuation of the sprawl (Brehenyand Rookwood 1993; Haughton and Hunter 1994)? At morelocal scales, there are important issues of promoting higherresidential densities and fostering greater mixed land use, thelatter widely advocated to minimize the need for long journeysfrom home to work, school, shops, and leisure facilities. Usingthe land resource more effectively through reshaping the city,it is argued, can lead to substantial energy savings (Owens1986; see Breheny 1995 for a critique of such arguments),while more localized efforts to improve building insulationand to align buildings to capture more natural sunlight canalso bring significant energy savings.The redesigning the city movement can be seen as essen-

tially focusing less on bringing nature back into the city itselfand more on creating a city on human terms. The envisionedcity is socially and economically vibrant and viable, creatingand celebrating distinctive built environments with their owncultural assets and aesthetics. With the emphasis on higher-density residential developments in particular, the intention isless to create a fabric that embraces nature within the city thanto create a vital urban center on its own terms. This exercisesless impact on external areas by, for instance, reducing ruralland taken for expansion and generally reducing energy con-sumption. Natural capital is assumed to be substitutable withhuman capital, within certain limits, so that preserving an an-cient cathedral may be more valuable than creating a newwildlife habitat. This is substitutability within limits, withcritical natural stocks preserved as far as possible and tech-nologies generally being reorientated to work with ratherthan against nature. In terms of equity considerations, mostare indirectly present, that is to say, implicit rather than ex-plicit. However, the emphasis on sorting out the problemsof the city from within does mean that external impacts arenot unpacked in any detail-it is just assumed that reducingland take and energy usage will have desirable impacts else-where. Little attention is paid to what the impacts might beof the remaining imported resources flows and exportedwaste streams of the city.

Externally Dependent CitiesConventional economists within what Rees (1995) refers

to as the &dquo;expansionist&dquo; paradigm tend to argue that the best

way to address environmental concerns is to pursue the cur-rent dominant Western path of high economic growth, saidto provide the wealth to address social inequalities and comeup with solutions to environmental problems. This is inmarked contrast to the &dquo;steady state&dquo; approaches of ecologi-cal economics, which emphasize the interconnectedness ofeconomy and ecology within a context of the finite possibili-ties offered by the ecosphere, in terms of resource availabil-ity and ability to absorb wastes. Ecological economics tendsto argue that the environment should be seen as providingboth opportunities and limits to economic growth, so thatgrowth needs to be shaped to ensure that it does not exceedlocal and global environmental carrying capacities (Ekinsand Max-Neef 1992).The externally dependent city essentially follows the con-

ventional or neoclassical view that environmental problemscan be addressed effectively by improving the workings ofthe free market. Typically, light-green approaches emphasizethe power of economic growth to generate problem-solvingtechnologies, as opposed to problem-creating technologies,with the implicit assumption of considerable substitutabilitybetween human and natural capital stocks. For example,Simon (1981) challenges the view that loss of agriculturalland to an out-of-town shopping mall is necessarily a badthing, since the market is sending clear signals that the landis worth more commercially developed for retailing than it isfor selling crops, reflecting overall consumer preferences andutilities. He also argues that although the loss of land maybe associated with considerable &dquo;externality disutilities,&dquo;there are also evident externality benefits to those who usethe mall, or those with adjacent land that rises in value.

In the free-market model, it is generally assumed thatcritical natural stocks can be adequately protected by themarket itself, supported by a minimalist regulatory systemthat sets minimum standards with respect to preservation.Following in the footsteps of Coase (1960), advocates ofthe free-market approach generally envisage expanding theareas of human activity subject to market discipline by pric-ing externalities and extending property rights, aiming touse market discipline, backed by legal sanction, to changehuman behavior patterns in support of resource conserva-tion and reduced pollution. For instance, extending prop-erty rights to cover ambient air quality could discouragefactories from emitting pollutants if they were subject topaying compensation for any environmental deteriorationexperienced by other property owners, provided that thismade it economically cheaper to purchase equipment toreduce pollution at source than to pay compensation(LeGrand et al. 1992).For the advocate of using the market system to address

environmental problems, the essential problems are usuallyseen as those of inadequate pricing, underdeveloped systemsof property ownership, poorly constructed markets, over-regulation, poor regulation, and no regulation. These can all



239

lead to market failures, which in turn lead to environmentalproblems. Central to this critique are market externalities,those aspects of behavior not adequately captured by con-ventional market pricing signals and not readily amenable toformal regulatory intervention. So excessive petroleum usagein cars in this view is connected directly to the fact that cer-tain impacts of this usage are not captured in the pricingmechanism. These externalities might include the costs ofpollution in terms of, for instance, impacts on asthmatics,contributions to the greenhouse effect, and the costs of roaddeaths and accidents. If such costs were calculated andadded to the price of gas, this ought to lead people to prefermore efficient cars, sending signals in turn to car manufac-turers to produce less energy-profligate vehicles. Economistsare currently expending considerable intellectual energy tofind ways of shadow-pricing such externalities and bringingthem into appropriate pricing systems, within the inevitablepolitical constraints (Pearce, Markandya, and Barbier 1989).It should be noted it is not just conventional economistswho see merit in this approach. Some radical commentatorsalso argue for altering pricing systems to incorporate exter-nalities more effectively, but place a different emphasis onthe role of state regulatory systems (Jacobs 1991). Alterna-tively, there is a strong radical critique that holds that pric-ing reform is essentially ephemeral, since capitalist marketsystems are inherently incapable of moving toward sustain-able development. In this view, more far-reaching transfor-mations of the economy and its regulation are required(O’Connor 1993).

In a similar vein, from the perspective of many conven-tional economists pursuing a market-centered approach, theenvironmental problems of the city are fundamentally onesof market failure or government failure. In the externallydependent city, global trading is seen as essentiallyunproblematic as long as market externalities can be identi-fied, assessed, and brought into the market mechanism bysome means. Urban environmental problems are seen to berelated not so much to cities themselves as to more generalmarket failures. Cities just happen to be major generators ofmarket externalities by virtue of their size, which leads toconcentrations of environmental problems in them (Buttonand Pearce 1989). The free market view is most evident inthe work of the World Bank in trying to address the envi-ronmental problems of Third World cities. Here, the envi-ronmental problems of cities are reduced to issues of im-proving the city overall: &dquo;The challenge of urban policy is,in abstract terms, how to maximize the agglomerationeconomies and their positive externalities while minimizingthe diseconomies and their negative externalities&dquo; (WorldBank 1991, 53; see also Button and Pearce 1989).

Following from this problem identification, the WorldBank’s ( 1991 ) proposed solutions flow rapidly in terms ofmeasures to improve market efficiency: introduce land re-forms, including land registers, and use the market to pro-

vide incentives to alter behavior patterns. In particular, it isargued that pricing policies may need to be changed, since&dquo;[b]y pricing resources and services at cost, excessive re-source use can be discouraged and costly investments post-poned ... especially in countries with seriously distortedprices, improved pricing policies can be an incentive formore efficient resource use and reduced air and water pollu-tion&dquo; (74). While equity considerations are not absent fromsuch analyses (see Pearce 1992), they are sometimes, in prac-tice, reduced to secondary elements of policy concern, whereit is assumed that appropriate market adjustment would inany case begin to address inequities.

Fair Shares Cities

The final approach to sustainable urban development isone I term fair shares cities, which sets out to ensure thatenvironmental assets are traded fairly, with a particular viewto ensuring that exchange does not take place in ways thatdegrade donor environments, economies, and societies. Toachieve this, it is important to ensure that adequate com-pensation is provided for the transfer of environmental as-sets. Similarly, waste streams that effectively appropriate theenvironmental health of other areas need to be regulated sothat they do not impact adversely on recipient area ecosys-tems, economies, and societies-and, to the extent that theydo, adequate compensatory mechanisms should be estab-lished. Given the emphasis on reducing use and pollutionstreams, many elements of the self-reliant city, redesigningthe city and externally dependent city policy directions arepresent. In the fair shares model, however, the additionaldimension is to bring about institutional transformationsthat directly link the actions of those responsible for degrad-ing environments, within the city and beyond, to the meansof repairing or compensating for this damage. As a precon-dition for trading in environmental externalities, it is essen-tial to take into account the carrying capacity and tolerancelevels of host and recipient environments. In this model,critical natural stocks are preserved while there is a condi-tional form of substitutability in other respects, where envi-ronmental exchanges are subject to increased concern aboutcompensation for any damaging environmental impacts. Inoverall policy terms, it is important, in the first instance, toboth minimize adverse impacts and to ensure equitable dis-tribution of environmental assets. In the second instance,

policy concerns include adequate mechanisms to compen-sate for the transfer of environmental externalities amongindividuals, groups, and geographical areas.The two dimensions of change are very much intercon-

nected. If negative externalities can be identified and attrib-uted to their source, requiring full compensation under theprinciples of geographical and procedural equity in particu-lar, this will lead to some changes in behavior patterns. Suchsentiments are easy to express, yet they remain surroundedby ambiguities that make it difficult to see how they can be



240

converted from broad principle into operational practice.Realistically, there will always be some trading of environ-mental goods and bads. For instance, a city may well export asmall amount of air pollution to a neighboring underdevel-oped region, which still has sufficient natural assimilativecapacity to absorb and neutralize the pollution. In this case,the environment of the recipient area remains largely un-damaged, and it might be possible to devise compensationmechanisms for the usage of this spare capacity, which couldhelp develop the area concerned. These need not be finan-cial ; they might also include preferential rights to marketaccess of polluter countries or changes to migration rightsfor people in the recipient areas (White and Whitney 1992).The danger remains, however, of socially unacceptable im-pacts arising, as demonstrated by regular protests by thoseopposing exports of nuclear or other toxic wastes. What isdeemed an under-polluted area by one person may well besomeone else’s preferred pristine environment. Clouding theissue still further are the instances of tension between envi-ronmental and social equity, such as where a poor nationpollutes a richer one, making the notion of transfer compen-sation payments more politically difficult to negotiate. Inaddition, there will be many instances of ambiguity overwhere a pollutant is sourced and over the relative impacts ofdifferent sources (for instance, among West European na-tions causing acid deposition problems in Scandinavia).

If we accept that some exchanges of environmental valueare both inevitable and potentially beneficial, the policy im-perative becomes to identify and in some sense measurethese exchanges, and then to devise systems to provide ad-equate compensation for any adverse impacts. These mightbe simply changes to pricing systems, but as the distributionof resulting income tends to be geographically and sociallyunconnected to where impacts are felt (contributions to thegeneral tax base or feeding the profits of large multination-als, for instance), then it is also likely to require some formof linked system for reparations. White and Whitney (1992)take the view that it should be possible to devise systems ofreparations that link areas benefiting from an exchange ofenvironmental value to those degraded by it.

It needs to be emphasized that there are enormous practicaland conceptual difficulties in isolating and gauging the netimpacts of these flows. The word net here is important, sincecities will inevitably generate a series of positive impacts onparts of their hinterland areas, providing much needed invest-ment and jobs (Jacobs 1984). Reducing the calculus to envi-ronmental inputs and outputs is immensely problematic inthis sense. Even if restricted to environmental considerations

alone, there remain practical difficulties of measuring the mul-tiplicity of tangible environmental flows and also their interac-tions, such as accidental combinations of air pollutants fromdifferent sources (Haughton 1997). There are problems too inidentifying how revenues would be raised, as well as preciselywho should pay for, and who should receive, any reparations.

Given the problems of identifying externalities andtradeoffs plus workable compensatory mechanisms at any-thing other than a large scale, the fair shares is perhaps easierto operate at the level of the nation-state rather than at theindividual city, except where strong city-states exist, such asHong Kong or Singapore. This said, it is possible to seeways in which cities can begin to work out their ecologicalfootprints as one first step toward increasing awareness ofhinterland impacts and developing the policies to addressthem. Even neighborhoods within cities can set up tradingrelationships with hinterland areas on more favorable termsor engage in targeted remedial action. An example of this isthe Halifax EcoCity proposal in Adelaide, which envisagesbuying and restoring rural land in its hinterland area as partof a remedial-compensatory approach (Downton 1997).

In terms of equity considerations, the fair shares approachpotentially seeks to address all dimensions, given that it isconstructed here as building on the best of each of the othermodels. It is strongest in addressing geographical and proce-dural equity issues, while the attention to local and globalcarrying capacities signals a strong concern for inter-speciesequity. The model falls down, perhaps, in its preoccupationwith institutional transformation, which mirrors the simi-larly problematic technical and design solutions of the rede-signing-the-city approach and the overemphasis on eco-nomic tools in the externally dependent city model.

0 EQUITY PRINCIPLES AND MODELS OF SUSTAINABLEURBAN DEVELOPMENT

It is difficult to provide a definite set of judgments on therelative merits of each of the four approaches outlined here,not least because in practice there is often considerable over-lap between the policies adopted under each approach-theshifts toward higher residential densities and mixed landuses advocated under the redesigning-the-city approach, forinstance, are also central to the self-reliant cities approach.As in this example, what differentiates the approaches issometimes as much what is not present as what is, in termsof both intellectual baggage and practical policy ap-proaches. The approach here is to reflect on some of theequity criteria outlined earlier to begin the process of evalu-ating how the four approaches can match up to the equityprinciples underpinning notions of sustainable develop-ment. There are problems here, too, since to be meaningfulthe principles need to be seen in combination rather thanseparately, given that they are all interrelated to some de-gree. It also needs to be admitted, from the start, that these

equity principles represent just one way in which the vari-ous approaches could be evaluated-and undoubtedly oth-ers would prefer to highlight various dimensions of eco-nomic efficiency, political accountability, or social viability.

Despite the necessarily crude nature of trying to judgeeach model in a fashion that reduces complex tradeoffs toone person’s (i.e., my) judgment, it is a valuable exercise to



241

begin to see how each of the four models of sustainable ur-ban development embodies different sets of equity concerns.Table 1 provides a summarized version of how each modelof sustainable urban development fares when judged againstthe principles for sustainable development outlined earlier.The intention here is not to prove or assert any one model asbetter than another: rather it is to highlight the key areas ofconcern in relation to fundamental principles for sustainabledevelopment that I see as being linked to each model. In asense, it is for other people to use their own judgment toundertake similar exercises, since I do not claim this as in

any way being a definitive view-even for myself, there aretensions and contradictions that I recognize still need to beexplored. For all its problems, this initial analysis does high-light some of the possible weak points and the strengths ofeach approach to sustainable urban development.

Having briefly alluded to some of the key equity issues asso-ciated with each model, in this section I provide a brief over-view of each principle in turn, reflecting on the relative meritsof each model. In terms of intergenerational equity, I tend togive the proponents of each approach the benefit of the doubtand assume that it is an overriding concern for all of them,although this appears to me to be largely implicit in the case ofthe externally dependent city model, and more explicit in theother models. It should be said that, in practice, whileintergenerational equity may be very much a concern for thosewho are seeking to integrate sustainable development consider-ations into the free-market approach, such work represents justa small part of the totality of work in this vein, much of whichcontinues seemingly oblivious to the challenges raised by sus-tainable development.The most problematic social equity issues concern ex-

treme versions of the free-market model, which rely heavilyon the market mechanism rather than state regulation toachieve their distributive goals. This said, it is clear thattransforming markets to reduce externalities and associated

Table 1. Environmental justice and models of sustainable urban development.

cost transferring activities is likely to be a central ingredientin shifting toward processes of sustainable developmentwithin existing capitalist systems. As such, simply rejectingthe market modification approaches would be shortsighted.Alternatively, expecting the market approach to bring aboutsocial equity goals without major directive transformationsand regulatory intervention would be unrealistic. Whileboth self-reliant and fair-shares approaches invariably putsocial equity considerations to the fore, this is not alwaystrue of redesigning-the-city approaches, which sometimestend toward tinkering with technocratic systems of doingthings for people or making people do things differently(which is also one reason why this model achieves slightlyless than top grading with respect to procedural equity).

In terms of geographical equity, I have a concern that ex-treme versions of the self-reliant city approaches could havedetrimental impacts on regions that formerly relied on in-come gained from trade with them, so for this reason I rateit as having potentially (but not necessarily) perverse impli-cations in respect of this principle. Similarly, there is a re-sidual concern that areas that become too introspective, andlooking to solutions from some romanticized low-technol-ogy past will miss out on some of the benefits of emergenttechnologies-an isolated community in a 50-year timewarp would be stuck with a lot of energy-inefficient tech-nologies. While externally dependent city approaches havethe potential to create policies that address spatial inequities,as a general rule the tools of the free-market economisttended to limit consideration of geography to the friction-ofdistance effects associated with location decisions, while un-

derplaying the way in which space is used in the creation ofcertain externalities.

My analysis of procedural equity in each of the modelsfollows that for geographical equity, with the exceptionthat-implicitly at least-self reliant cities are more coher-ently committed to installing systems that reduce or com-

pensate for adverse external im-

pacts, while being very clearlycommitted to improving internalprocedural issues such as participa-tion mechanisms.With respect to inter-species

equity, as noted earlier, judgmentson potential impacts of urban de-velopment may well vary accordingto which spatial scale is used instudying the city-region and thepersonal judgments about whetherit is better to encourage natural

areas, agriculture, and wildlifehabitats closer to the city center(self-reliant city) or to protect hin-terland environments by buildingmore compact cities with only lim-



242

ited public open space. One example of such tensions interms of redesigning-the-city approaches concerns attemptsto build higher-density, more-compact cities, which maywell lead to the loss of valuable brownfield open-space sites

that once hosted considerable wildlife activity. Alternatively,such policies may well forestall or even prevent residentialencroachment on greenfield sites at the edge of the city. Itvery much reflects my personal beliefs that I see more prob-lems with concreting over the city than with approaches thatencourage the extension of green areas within the city, forthis reason: The redesigning-the-city and the externally de-pendent city models both appear as potentially problematicin Figure 1, since in some versions both undervalue the roleof encouraging greenspace in the city either by relegating itin importance, or in the case of the free-market approach,relying on commercial land values to reflect broader aes-thetic values.

The question of which approach overall is best is evi-dently more tricky than it seems, made more problematicbecause so many features of the different models are in prac-tice shared. The approach that appears to emerge most fa-vorably is the fair-shares city, although by imbuing it withmost of the positive qualities of the other models, I haveperhaps begun to give it a degree of concreteness and desir-ability that it does not really yet have. In practice, my view isthat each of the models is dominated by particular profes-sions and often linked into specific policy and academic dis-ciplinary areas (e.g., ecologists, planners, or economists).

In conclusion, the main value of highlighting the differ-ences in approach is to draw attention to the parallel possi-bilities in addressing the urban contribution to sustainabledevelopment, to try to ensure that policy myopia does notset in. This seems particularly important to planners: We donot have all the tools necessary to move toward sustainable

development, just some of them. We can see aspects of theTinbergen principle at work here; for a policy to achieve itsgoals, policy makers require at least as many tools as thereare goals. Too often, policies have been framed that are tooambitious relative to the resources and instruments availableto implement them.l 1

Author’s Note: This work benefits from varzous discussions with commentsfrom anonymous referees of thzs Journal, two of whom provzded partzcularlyuseful and detailed advzce for which I am grateful The paper derives fromwork undertaken under ESRC project (grant L320 25 3186). An earlierM~C~M~ 0/~f .~&M?M~? M~MM <&’ff/<~~!~~ ~M</~ MM ~~MM</ M ofworking of the sustainable urban development models can be found in thejournal Cnies (Haughton 1997): The current article briefly summarzzes thearguments found there and extends the analysis by examining the equityimplications of each. Thanks also to Simon Guy, Simon Marvin, and joeRavetz for comments on earlier drafts of thzs paper Responszbzltty for thecontents remains mtne alone

0 NOTES

1. This needs to be recognized in our training of planners, too, as we seekto integrate ecological and economic perspectives more thoroughly intoour curricula. So I am not against any of these approaches, which areafter all rather artificially constructed here to highlight the differentprevalent schools of thought. Rather I would argue that all bringparticular insights of value to the goal of moving toward the sustainablecity and sustainable development more generally. The challenge is todraw on their respective concerns and strengths toward a moreintegrated policy approach for the future.

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Documents

Environmental Justice and the Sustainable City · Environmental justice and social justice are seen as intrinsically connected in such analyses. In this article, both are treated