C Michael Broyles

Sustainable development has become increasingly in vogue with urban centers throughout the past half century The reason for this is twofold: first, in part due to growing environmentalist movements, and second, because of the popularization of urban renewal as a response to decaying urban infrastructure. While environmentalism as a doctrine is hardly reproachable, many scholars have aimed criticism toward the growing trend of urban renewal in cities in the United States; this phenomenon, they argue, displaces long-standing communities in urban spaces and is the bedrock of the gentrification process. This calls into question how beneficial sustainable development is for the communities that already occupy urban space. With this in mind, I will devote this article to trying to answer the questions of how sustainability is integrated in the city and particularly the decision-making processes behind sustainable development, and determine how these processes affect outcomes of urban environmental reform.

This discourse has existed as long as industrial urban space has; in the past the residence of working class and minority communities was and often still is the epicenter of urban pollution: from the unequal distribution of water and air pollution during the early industrial period (Platt, 307: 2005) to the more recent practices of waste dumping in ways that affect working-class and minority communities more heavily in a phenomenon called “environmental racism” (Anderton et al. 229: 1994). In addressing these issues, municipalities seek to repair and replace existing infrastructures with ones that are more resilient, one of many processes in sustainable development in a socially equitable way.

Also, it is shown that along with these various issues concerning environmental equity in urban spaces, the urban poor experience an unequal access to public green spaces (Wolch et al. 236: 2014); yet despite all of these issues, integrating sustainable development into low income communities, as Wolch et al observe, produces an effect of “ecological gentrification” in cities

(ibid. 239). This is where urban political schemes come into play in this discourse by raising the following question: why is it that in some cases where community based organizations introduce environmental reform to urban spaces, improving conditions creates a more politically salient community and successful reforms that benefit the community holistically, whereas others create this disconnect where gentrification fills the gap?

To answer this, one must observe how urban political factions and their relationship to development processes determine sustainable development outcomes; the best way of doing this is exploring various case studies of environmental reforms via urban renewal. Yanarella and

Levine cite the example of Chattanooga's progress from an industrial city in decline to a powerhouse of sustainability; this process begins in the late twentieth century as legislation such as the Clean Air Act underlines how environmentally behind Chattanooga is at the time. The city in Tennessee historically exemplified cases of environmental racism and so-called urban blight

(Yanarella and Levine, 117: 2011).

The shift in environmental and later sustainability reforms starts in Chattanooga following the genesis of federal EPA reforms in tandem with local political shifts, introducing a strong mayoral system that led to "a strengthening of the office of the mayor and the expansion of representation among minorities" (ibid. 126). With this CBOs such as Chattanooga

Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE) came to the forefront of urban and environmental revitalization in public housing (ibid. 129).

In this example CBOs gain access to the decision-making process following a time of political disruption by using grassroots activism; however it is notable that CNE's job of integrating sustainable development and effecting social justice was left half done. While acquiring some gains for the communities represented in this example, these CBOs are still bound to the particular political and economic interests of the political institutions at work in

Chattanooga.

Moving on from this example it may seem that environmental reform in U.S. cities is a relatively new phenomenon- however these movements are far from novel in urban politics. In fact reform movements of this sort have existed as long as industrial cities have brought imbalance to local environments. For example, air pollution and garbage mismanagement have been issues for the urban working class since the late nineteenth centuries, in light of the early suburbanization of bourgeois urbanites (Platt, 311: 2005). Entering the Progressive Era in the

United States, many activists and groups began to tackle this issue of pollution in the city.

In regards to Chicago in the gilded age, Jane Addams, with the help of other supporters of the social gospel movement, began to lock horns with machine politicians to effect environmental reforms (ibid. 333). As the icon of the City Homes Association, Addams would deal with the hierarchical machine system in Chicago by producing welfare systems that would increase the following of the progressives (ibid. 340). Here, while neighborhoods in Chicago still maintain slum status following the Progressive Era, the changes in water and air pollution management allow for greatly improved living conditions in the windy city. In this scenario, the successes of this environmental movement are attributable to the growth of medical germ theories at this time; as these studies emerge in the wake of typhoid and tuberculosis epidemics,

Addams exerted pressure on ward bosses by bringing the relationship between poor environmental conditions and increased spread of diseases (ibid. 344). In these case studies it becomes clear that this relationship- that is, the one between reform as well as renewal and community access to the decision-making processes behind development- that determine at least historical perceptions of the successes of sustainable development, if not the success itself. In these examples, it shows that urban renewal which disengages from the public more often has deleterious effects on the public who occupies this space. With the advent of street trees, implemented directly by local governments, comes a gentrifying effect where property values increase, forcing out poorer residents.

By contrast, grassroots community organizing, whether from historical groups like Jane

Addams’ City Homes Association or contemporary groups such as STOP in Chattanooga, provides more comprehensive reform that encompasses the environmental and social pillars of sustainability. However with examples like CNE we are reminded also that grassroots organizing alone does not guarantee proper representation of communities in cities- a keen attention to accountability and representation must be paid in order for CBOs to serve as vanguards of urban public interests.

In conclusion, these case studies are indicative of the fact that community organizing alone does not guarantee the protection of the interests of impoverished urban communities in processes of sustainable development- in fact in some cases, the actions of CBOs often have the reverse effect on these communities. As Platt puts it, “City government plays a central role not only in the physical construction of the built environment but also in the day-to-day maintenance of the quality of life within it” (Platt, 358: 2005). Hence, it is inevitable that bottom-up reform movements for the environment of urban spaces are only successful as long as city officials are willing to adopt them and apply them to policy in the first place. In this regard, it is the structure of the political institutions that have been put in place in each city that determine the efficacy of environmental reforms and sustainable development in creating social justice. David Harvey noted the “mutual reciprocity between social and environmental changes” (Dooling, 621: 2009) in his Justice, Nature, and the Geography of

Difference; this idea is largely important to the study of urban geography and politics. This is the difference between the example of reforms in Addams’ case versus modern sustainable development in cities like Chattanooga: while Addams used the problems brought on by environmental inequity and racism to make city politicians accountable for the decaying conditions of the built urban environment, activists in Chattanooga use urban decay as a veneer of social justice to justify development that is, while attractive to politicians and developers, detrimental to existing communities. In order to produce reform holistically, the community must be understood as a social group interacting in tandem with political entities and the built environment it inhabits.

Bibliography

Anderton, Douglas L. et al. “Environmental Equity: The Demographics of Dumping” from

Demography Vol. 31, No. 2 (May, 1994). Springer, on behalf of the Population Association of America. Web. 14 October 2015.

Dooling, Sarah. “Ecological Gentrification: A Research Agenda Exploring Justice in the City”

from International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 33.3. Blackwell

Publishing, September 2009. Web. 14 October 2015.

Platt, Harold L. Shock Cities. The University of Chicago Press, 2005. Print.

Wolch, Jennifer et al. “Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The

challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’” from Landscape and Urban Planning.

Elsevier, 2014. Web. 14 October 2015.

Yanarella, Ernest and Levine, Richard. The City as Fulcrum of Global Sustainability. Anthem

Press, 2011. Print.