Environmental Justice and the City: Full Report Simin Davoudi and Elizabeth Brooks October 2012 Environmental Justice and the City Environmental Justice and the City: Full Report Simin Davoudi and Elizabeth Brooks Global Urban Research Unit School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Newcastle University October 2012 Study commissioned by Newcastle City Council and funded by the Institute for Local Governance to inform the work of Newcastle City Council’s Fairness Commission Global Urban Research Unit i Simin Davoudi is Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and the Theme Coordinator for Environmental Justice and Governance at Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability, at Newcastle University. She is past President of the Association of the European Schools of Planning and an elected member of the Academy of Social Sciences. Simin has led the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Planning Research Network and served as member of: expert panels for three UK government departments (DCLG, DEFRA, DECC), the ESRC Grant Assessment Panel, the Research Excellence Framework Sub-Panel in the UK and in several other European countries, the RTPI’s Research and Knowledge Committee, the Expert Groups for two European Commission Directorate Generals (Environment and Regional Policy, and Presidency Seminars), the Advisory Boards of the Irish Social Science Platform, University of Hong Kong, and BTH Swedish School of Planning. Simin has held visiting professorships at the universities of Amsterdam, Karlskrona and Nijmegen. She is one of the editors of the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, a founding member of the editorial team of the Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences, and on the editorial boards of 10 international journals. Her research, which focuses largely on planning and environmental governance, has been funded by a range of international and national research funding bodies and is published widely. For more details please see: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/guru/staff/ profile/simin.davoudi Elizabeth Brooks is a Research Associate at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, where she completed a PhD in 2009, joint-funded by the ESRC and the Department of Communities and Local Government. She is currently employed on an EU Framework Programme 7 project running from 2012-2015, to which she is contributing support on stakeholder involvement and environmental governance. She has recently worked on the democratic and justice implications of the new Neighbourhood Planning policy in England and contributed to an EPSRC-funded project on Climate Change Adaptation. Working in research since 1996, she has contributed to research studies on a diverse range of topics including older people, housing and community care, for bodies including government departments, universities and NGOs. For more details see: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/apl/ staff/profile/elizabeth.brooks#tab_profile. ii Newcastle University Environmental Justice and the City Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Institute for Local Governance for funding this study and Newcastle City Council for commissioning and providing support throughout the study. At the preparatory stages of the study, we were given practical support and advice by Philip Hunter, Head of Policy and Research, and Adrian McLoughlin, Climate Change Officer, at Newcastle City Council. We were also supported by discussions with Dr Lucy Grimshaw, School of Social Sciences and Law, Teeside University. We owe thanks to: James O’Brien, PhD student, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and Dr Claire Walsh, Research Associate, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, for providing GIS support and maps, and Professor Tanja Pless-Mulloli, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University for commenting on the first draft of the air pollution section of the report. We would also like to thank the council officers who generously gave their time and took part in interviews for this study. We benefited from the discussions in the two roundtable events which we organised as part of this study. We are grateful to those who took part and particularly the following speakers (in order of appearance): 24 November 2011 Workshop • Chair: Professor Simin Davoudi (NIReS Justice and Governance Theme) • Philip Hunter (Head of Policy and Research, Newcastle City Council) • Dr Paul Crawshaw (Social Futures Institute, Teesside University) • Dr Lucy Grimshaw (School of Social Sciences and Law, Teesside University) • Dr Jane Midgley (School of Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University) • Professor David Schlosberg (University of Sydney, Visiting Professor, SAPL, Newcastle University) 22 March 2012 Workshop • Chair: Professor Paul Younger (Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability, NReS) • Professor William Rees (University of British Columbia, Visiting Professor, SAPL, Newcastle University) • Adrian McLoughlin (Newcastle City Council) • Professor Tanja Pless-Mulloli (Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University) • Dr Derek Bell (School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University) Finally, we would like to thank Minh Dung Le for his support with designing both this document and the brief Executive Summary version of it. (Please refer to the end of this report for details of how to obtain the Executive Summary). Disclaimer The opinions expressed in this report are entirely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of those acknowledged above. Global Urban Research Unit iii Environmental Justice and the City Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 1.1 Why does environmental justice matter? 4 1.2 Assessing environmental justice 5 1.3 About this report 6 2. On Justice 9 2.1 Distributive justice and the question of a ‘fair’ share 10 2.2 Beyond distributive justice: recognition, capabilities and responsibilities 12 2.3 A framework for understanding and advancing fairness 13 3. Environmental Justice 15 3.1 Origin and history 16 3.2 Continuing injustices 17 3.3 Definition and substantive scope 18 3.4 Sustainability and justice 19 3.5 Beyond distribution: recognition, capabilities and participation 19 4. Newcastle City 23 4.1 From cradle of the industrial revolution to green capital 24 4.2 Demography 25 4.3 Income, employment and qualifications 26 4.4 Deprivation, inequalities and neighbourhood health differential 27 4.5 Health 29 4.6 Crime 29 4.7 Environment 30 iv Newcastle University Environmental Justice and the City 5. Distribution of Environmental Burdens 33 5.1 Air pollution 36 5.2 Landfills and hazardous sites 44 5.3 Rundown neighbourhoods 52 5.4 Poor housing conditions 61 5.5 Road traffic accidents 69 6. Distribution of Environmental Benefits 79 6.1 Urban green and open spaces 82 6.2 Natural places: nature reserves, woodlands and allotments 94 6.3 Blue spaces and water 101 6.4 Local public transport 110 6.5 Affordable warmth 119 6.6 ‘Green’ jobs 131 7. Procedural Justice, Participation and Access to Information 139 8. Bibliography 142 Global Urban Research Unit v Photo by Minh Dung Le 2 Newcastle University Introduction SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION The current financial crisis is driving environmental terms in Newcastle. many government policies in the UK and To fill the gap, this study has been elsewhere. However, economics alone commissioned by the Council and funded cannot decide what policy changes the by the Institute for Local Governance. government should make. At its best, It aims to examine a range of issues in economics can tell us the effects of relation to environmental justice in order seeking alternative policies, but without to inform and complement the work of the being guided by a set of normative Fairness Commission. principles, it cannot provide guidance on The report has seven main sections. which policy to pursue. At the heart of Following this introduction, Section Two such normative principles is the pursuit of briefly outlines different interpretations justice and fairness. This is acknowledged of justice and fairness and clarifies the by Newcastle City Council (NCC) which position adopted in this study. Section has established a Fairness Commission to Three provides an overview of the develop a set of guiding principles for the history of environmental justice, and its governance of the City at a time of financial definitions and perspectives. In Section austerity. This stems from a desire to Four a brief profile of Newcastle upon ensure equitable access to services while Tyne is presented, focusing particularly continuing to prioritise those most in need. on spatial differentiations and inequalities It will entail understanding the nature in the city. Sections Five and Six present of the challenges ahead and exploring our empirical work in relation to the how the powers and resources of the socio-spatial distribution of, respectively, Council alongside those of other public environmental burdens and benefits in agencies and the private and voluntary Newcastle. Section Seven focuses on sectors can be deployed to address them procedural justice and the significance in an innovative and effective manner. of participation both in decision- The focus of the Fairness Commission making processes and in contributing is on socio-economic issues. However, to sustainability. A full bibliography is it is strongly recognised by the Council provided in Section Eight. that these issues cannot be examined fully without considering