Global Im-Possibilities

Exploring the Paradoxes of Just Sustainabilities

Phoebe Godfrey, Mary Buchanan

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781786999511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economia
• Subtopic: Sviluppo sostenibile

At a time when environmental and social stakes are at their highest – with rising crises and contradictions at the nexus of a building sense of environmental and social collapse – there are no easy solutions. Global Im-Possibilities explores just what can be done around the world to ameliorate this dynamic. Using a range of essays and a multitude of case studies, this book explores what new lessons can be learned from examining the challenges and impediments to achieving just sustainabilities on the levels of policy, planning, and practice, and considers how these challenges and impediments can be addressed by individuals and/or governments. Taking a nuanced approach to provide an intersectional analysis of a particular issue relating to the ideals for achieving sustainability, this book asserts that that it is only in recognizing such complexity that we can hope to achieve just sustainabilities.

Part I

PROMISES AND DELIVERIES

A promise and/or a plan—whether articulated by people, through treaties, through marketing, in a collectively shared vision for the future, or through a myriad of other forms—is inherently temporal. A potential changed state of being is foreseen and communicated, and some degree of action is pledged to make it happen in the future. This temporal path from intention to impact is, however, far from straightforward, with the hoped-for outcomes muddled both by seemingly insincere actors and by genuine actors whose sincerity is nevertheless not enough to surmount ideological and logistical hurdles. The past, too, shapes this process, as historical contexts surround every site of potential action, and decisions made by long-ago actors still reverberate in meaningful and structural ways. The case studies in this section are heavily steeped in history, folded within legacies of colonization, discrimination, and structural marginalization. Other temporal measurements become critical as well—shortened life spans of both people and buildings, the geologic age of fuels with the moniker “fossil,” the sharp pivot points of presidential elections and presidential removals, and more.

Chapter 1 examines claims of economic growth and sustainability surrounding new sports stadiums in Atlanta, fast-tracked on the path to development with promises of economic gain and environmental ornamentation, overlaid on neighborhoods shaped by decades of structural racism. Chapters 2 and 3 explore case studies emerging from the centuries-long continent-spanning effects of genocide, colonialism, and land loss, examining communities in North Dakota and Bolivia who wrestle with the threats posed by extractivism and their simultaneously urgent need for economic security. In Chapter 2, time and place are inseparable for the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara (MHA) Nation, whose land is both the keeper of ancestral spirits and also a rich source of oil and gas resources. In Chapter 3, the historic nature of Evo Morales’ role as the first indigenous president in the 500 years since colonization nevertheless failed to mitigate the ongoing threats to indigenous territory and sovereignty, or the lasting power dynamics left over from colonial supply lines. In all of these cases, the clear concern for the possible futures is also a key temporal element, as of course, none of these stories are finished.

1

DESTROY AND REBUILD: CONSIDERING HARM, COMMUNITY BENEFITS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ORNAMENTATION IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN ATLANTA

Dr. Lemir Teron

Ms. T’Shari White

Ms. Farah Nibbs

Ms. Farzaneh Khayat

Planning and Marginalization

The brutality of racial discrimination propelled by the state, through practices such as redlining, restrictive covenants, and iterations of urban renewal, has driven racial segregation in cities throughout America’s history. The effects of this segregation have been chronicled at various points for over a century (see DuBois in the seminal The Philadelphia Negro and Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro), and the contemporary consequences range from inadequate schooling, to food insecurity, to substandard housing. Along with other environmental factors, and in concert with economic and psychosocial considerations, these factors have severe public health consequences for Black Americans, who consequently suffer from shortened life expectancies across all age ranges, compared to white counterparts (Cunningham et al. 2017). Central to propelling racial inequality has been public policy, which in various incarnations has placed a premium on racial exclusion and isolation (Coates 2014). Whether it be through cities’ use of red-lining to perpetuate segregation, racist transportation policies that isolate and underserve low-income communities (Stone 1989), or urban renewal leading to increasingly marginalized and disenfranchised urbanites (Wilson 1987), dedicated forces used to push disadvantaged groups to the socioeconomic margins have continually isolated African Americans and other marginalized populations, producing harmful intergenerational consequences. It is vital that attempts to ameliorate socioeconomic, health, and environmental inequality in cities recognize the racial components at the root of many dilemmas; thus, environmental sustainability initiatives are a critical player in this equation.

This chapter explores the challenges and contradictions facing cities as they simultaneously purport to advance pro-environmental and community agendas, while engaging in economic development strategies that propel corporate interests. While many distressed communities are in or adjacent to areas targeted for redevelopment, the plights of residents are often not central to strategies, thus further driving marginalization. This research features a case study evaluating the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, completed in 2017, exploring possible threats to the potential for just sustainabilities (Agyeman 2013) in urban practice when prerequisite attention and deference is not given to deep understandings of environmental and racial justice that affect procedural concerns. As a result, marginalized communities’ interests are placed in direct conflict with the politics and practices of urban economic development. Agyeman notes that cities, subject to the colonizing force of Western capitalism, face threats from “the increasing privatization of public spaces” (2013: 99). In order to evaluate the potential for just sustainabilities, it is necessary to evaluate planning dynamics to gauge the potential for equitable sustainability planning. Hence, we evaluate the Mercedes Benz Stadium project, which has been propelled by hundreds of millions of public dollars, and explores the potential contradictions pertaining to environmentally sustainability as it embodies the hyper-replacement model, all while boosting sustainability credentials (including LEED Platinum certification, solar PV and electric vehicle charging, and rainwater capture capacity) as it replaces a facility whose useful life, structurally, was far from exhaustion.

City on the Ascent and Underlying Conditions

Since the 1980s, Atlanta, Georgia, has emerged as the South’s epicenter of commerce, a global tourist destination, and home to a number of the nation’s most prominent corporations (including several Fortune 100 companies). With an exploding regional population that added on average over 77,000 residents annually between 1990 and 2010 (Atlanta Regional Commission 2014), the consequences of uneven development and consequential sprawl have become synonymous with the region.

As a bustling hub for jobs and home to a swelling population, largely autocentric development has created a host of issues for the region, ranging from environmental threats (including air quality issues and deforestation), to housing and residential segregation, to educational disparities (Bullard, Johnson, & Torres 2000). Much of the region’s working (and playing) population is bound by automobile to get from suburban areas into job and entertainment districts, mostly located within city limits or elsewhere inside the perimeter of the I-285 corridor, the interstate that encircles the city and surrounding urbanized suburbs. Of the over 4.2 million people that live in the 10-county metropolitan area, less than 40 percent inhabit Fulton and DeKalb Counties (the two counties in which Atlanta is contained) and only 10 percent of all metropolitan residents reside in Atlanta (Atlanta Regional Commission 2014). As the region’s population has grown, racialized housing patterns have persisted from earlier decades. For example, between 2000 and 2010, counties adding African American populations mostly lost white population, as the inner-core suburban counties became more African American, while whites congregated to the region’s outer-counties (Pooley 2015). This contemporary urban/suburban and racial dichotomy has also been characteristic of historic divides that have played out in a number of contexts, including politics around mass transit siting (Stone 1989), which saw several counties rejecting interconnectivity over the decades. This would ultimately factor into one of the most significant, yet unsung, toxic air crises in US history, as Atlanta holds the distinction of being the first city in the nation’s history to lose federal highway funding because of air toxicity (Shrouds 2000). The city only recently reached compliance with the 1997 ozone standards of 84 ppb, by coming in at 80 ppb some sixteen years later. Due to federal cuts, numerous highway projects were sacked, with the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds. Nearly two decades later, asthma-involved emergency room visits for children in metro Atlanta are among the highest in the state, with Black boys under the age of five as the state’s most vulnerable population (Annor et al. 2015). The lack of foresight in planning over decades and a strong legacy of pro-growth policies all scaffolded by racial politics have resulted in geographic racial disparities, which have limited the potential for just sustainabilities in the contemporary urban space (Agyeman 2013). Black Americans in urban America have been subject to a litany of racist activities, including redlining policies by the Home Owners Loan Corporation in the 1930s, racial covenants in home deeds restricting sales to African American buyers, and the Realtor Code of Ethics, which declared, “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood” (National Association of Real Estate Boards 1924). The legacies of the above all inform contemporary urban life in cities across the nation.

The toxic air conditions in metro Atlanta have significant public health consequences, particularly for populations with respiratory vulnerabilities. In 2010, just two of Atlanta’s hospitals alone had over 500 ER visits related directly to smog (Henderson 2006; Williams 2013). Going back to 1996, the CDC identified that during the Olympic Games (with its reduced traffic volumes due to city regulations restricting traffic) daily ozone reductions decreased by nearly 28 percent (falling from 81.3 ppb to 58.6 ppb) corresponding with a 22.5 percent decrease in morning rush hour traffic. During this same window, asthma acute care events related hospitalizations dropped by over 41 percent (Friedman et al. 2001).¹ The racial implications of asthma-related visits during this era were profound. Black children accounted for over two-thirds of all asthma-related pediatric emergency room visits in Atlanta, but less than half of all emergency room hospitalizations (Tolbert et al. 2000). Perhaps the most alarming consequences of public health disparities are life expectancy gaps across adjacent neighborhoods, which in Atlanta are as large as thirteen years between some inner-city communities (Minyard et al. 2016). This distressing gulf warrants attention from not only public health officials but also urbanists, planners, and developers, as these parties have all historically contributed to driving health, economic, and political disparities. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), created to combat Atlanta’s transportation and air quality issues, declares its mission is “to reduce congestion and improve mobility” while operating “high-quality, efficient regional commuter services” and creating “a lean responsive state transportation authority working to improve Georgia’s world-class transportation network” (GRTA 2017). Conspicuously absent from this mission are public health concerns, which are ironically not essential to the agency’s charge.

Stadium Development

As stadium financing is increasingly backed by public investment (Berkeley Economic Review 2019), it is imperative to explore the economic rationale that supporters champion. In addition, as Atlanta’s stadium is touted for its environmental credentials, a critique of the facility from an environmental sustainability lens is appropriate, especially given the areas’ high rates of pollution. While supporters have argued that the Atlanta facility has the capacity to spur economic development (Reed 2017), the shortening life span of facilities, generally, along with the potential for displacement and gentrification, presents challenges for municipalities to promote and deliver just and sustainable development. Furthermore, threats to procedural justice, in which projects are seemingly fast-tracked without ample public review, undermine democratic processes in urban planning, further reducing the potential for just sustainabilities.

While this work examines a twenty-first-century sports venue and its environmental, economic, and equity consequences, Atlanta’s pursuit of sports facilities to create jobs and spur economic growth has a multigenerational history. Indeed, a major part of making Atlanta a “national city” was former mayor Ivan Allen’s pursuit of major-league sports teams (Stone 1989). Just prior to his initial mayoral run in the early 1960s, Allen, then head of the City’s Chamber of Commerce, developed a six-pronged program for redevelopment that embodied urban renewal: constructing expressways, constructing rapid-transit, acquiring professional baseball, setting up civic centers, and city advertising (Keating 2001). This required infrastructure and investment in the form of stadiums and arenas to accommodate sporting events. Atlanta has engaged in venue construction for multiple sports since the city lured the Atlanta Braves from Milwaukee in the 1950s. The impetus for a baseball facility was perhaps the capstone project of the earlier rounds of post–Second World War urban renewal.

The pursuit of public sporting events and facilities is not a uniquely Atlanta (or even American) venture (Zimbalist 2015)—and the social ills associated with high-profile venues are ubiquitous, ranging from bribery to secure Olympic games, to alleged slave labor used in the construction of World Cup facilities, along with relocation-driven extortion that is seemingly omnipresent in cities around the United States as team owners vie for publicly financed sports facilities which often pits municipalities against one another (Longman 2000; Waldron 2012; Pattisson 2013). This creates a paradox in which, though facilities are ostensibly public goods, the anti-democratic means involved in finance and construction highlight the internally flawed logic behind many of these ventures.

A key part in Atlanta’s public development face has been the city’s willingness to remove the (perceived) unsightly—including peoples, both poor and homeless—and a semiotics built on image (Whitelegg 2000). This erasure incapac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents 
• List of Figures
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: Promises and Deliveries
• Part II: Whose Cities?
• Part III: Scales of Decision-Making and Action
• Part IV: Reimagining the Possible
• Conclusion: Global [Im]-Possibilities for Just Sustainabilities?
• Index
• Imprint