Nature and the City:The Political Ecology of Air Pollution,

Urbanization and Sustainabilityby

David Michael Comfort

Summary: Nature and the CityThe Political Ecology of Air Pollution, Urbanization and Sustainability

The sustainability of cities in the industrialized world lies at the crux of theenvironmental dilemma facing humanity. Patterns of environmental degradation originate inthese places due to disproportionate levels of consumption and the social and industrialprocesses necessary to maintain such levels. These patterns are even more egregiousconsidering that they require large-scale extraction of resources from all over the world andthe fact that these patterns are being replicated throughout the developing world. Theenvironment in urbanized areas is constructed, degraded and contested through socialprocesses which are the result of complex, dialectical relations between discourses about theenvironment, space, and place and non-discursive material practices. Certain questionsemerge by conceiving of cities as constructed ecosystems. How are cities constructed suchthat a particular set of social relations is consolidated and how do these relations transformand degrade the environment? How do certain environmental issues become defined asproblems and certain practices conceived of as solutions? How do communities resistenvironmental degradation and shape their own local ‘environments’? In this book-lengthstudy, I address these and related questions through an exploration and comparison of thepolitical ecology of air pollution in Los Angeles and London.

Struggles over ‘the environment’ are at the nexus of how individuals andcommunities define and construct their communities. I argue that these struggles over theurban environment are inherently contestations over space and place. By analyzing thematerial and cognitive ways in which these spaces are constituted, I will explore how thesestruggles operate in a wider arena of power relations. By situating a critique of the origins,effects and policies concerning air pollution in a broader context, one can view environmentaldegradation as the reflection of uneven relations of power which are expressedgeographically. By contextualizing such an exploration of urban spaces, one can gain a richerunderstanding of the processes which lead to environmental degradation and how publicpolicies can be formulated such that they lead to a sustainable and just urban future.

The primary goal of this project is to examine the origins, effects, and responses toair pollution in two major urbanized areas – Los Angeles and London. I will examine howenvironmental degradation is unevenly distributed geographically along the lines of class andethnicity within these two cities; explore the role of grassroots organizations which addressenvironmental issues in their local communities; examine the formation of public policiesdirected towards air quality in these communities; and analyze the relation between local-regional air pollution and globalization. I will present my research findings in a book-lengthmanuscript and, in addition, prepare a lay version of these findings designed for generalreadership. Little work has been conducted which attempts to integrate the themes ofenvironmental justice, public policy formation, and the origins and effects of environmentaldegradation. My project will bridge this gap by relating these themes to the contested natureof place construction in order to gain a understanding of urban-ecological transformations.

Project Narrative: Nature and the CityThe Political Ecology of Air Pollution, Urbanization and Sustainability

Background and SignificanceThe concept of sustainability has only become prominent within the past decade,

ever since the Brundtland report Our Common Future was published in 1987 and the RioConference in 1992. Concern over the future of the world’s environment and its resources hasmost decidedly moved into the public consciousness and onto the agendas of governments,business and non-governmental agencies. In addition, an alternative paradigm is taking shapewhich challenges traditional views of national and global security. This novel concept ofecological security argues that the main threats to security now come not from individualstates but from global environmental problems such as global warming, deforestation, andloss of biodiversity, and regards traditional military security policies as serious obstacles toaddressing these problems.

The environmental impact of urbanized areas in the late twentieth century isimmense; they are inherently unsustainable. A host of environmental problems are associatedwith cities: high levels of energy consumption, local and regional air pollution withsubsequent health effects, increased greenhouse gas levels, as well as a host of socio-economic problems. There is a compelling need to address sustainability in cities in thedeveloping world, yet it is in cities in the industrialized North where affluence compoundsenvironmental degradation. There is a disproportionate consumption of resources in thesecities which results in a range of local, regional and global environmental problems. Since thepatterns of resource usage and the resultant environmental degradation present in theseindustrialized cities are likely to be emulated and adopted in the developing world, thesecities present a suitable location for a study of what constitutes unsustainability.

In order to situate the concept of sustainability in an urban context, one needs anunderstanding of how urbanized areas are transformed ecologically through the constructionand reproduction of a certain set of social relations. There has been substantial work whichexamines the material origins and effects of environmental degradation, the discourses andpublic policy formation surrounding certain environmental problems, as well as explorationsof uneven exposure to pollutants. However, to properly understand the complex dialecticalrelations between the environment and urbanization, one needs to integrate these themes andsituate them in particular historical and spatial contexts. This project will bridge the gapbetween these different approaches by undertaking a comparative study of air pollution intwo different urbanized areas in the industrialized North - Los Angeles and London.

In conducting a comparative study of Los Angeles and London, I have selected twocities which have become recognized as ‘world cities’ and hence, integrated into theeconomic, political, social, and cultural processes of globalization. In addition, Los Angelesand London are cities with extremely diverse populations which are a result of very distincthistories. In any exploration of these cities, one must take into account the ways in whichthese histories have been shaped by the cultural politics of identity and place. It has beendemonstrated that the effects of environmental degradation are distributed unevenly alonglines of race, ethnicity and social class. In reaction, various organizations have mobilized toaddress these imbalances and express their sense of identity and desires for the spaces whichconstitute their ‘homes’. This study will address the ways in which space and place areconstructed. In addition, this project will examine how public policies are formulated in lightof the importance of place and space as contested terrains.

Goals and Objectives: The main goal of this project is to examine the origins, effects andresponses to environmental degradation in urbanized areas.The specific objectives of this project are: 1) to conduct research on air pollution in twomajor urbanized areas, Los Angeles and London; explore why and how this form ofenvironmental degradation is unevenly distributed geographically and how this disparateexposure relates to public policy formation; to analyze the relation between local-regional airpollution and global environmental problems; and to investigate grassroots movements whichaddress environmental problems and quality of life issues in their local communities; 2) topresent my research findings in a book-length manuscript and, in addition, prepare a layversion designed for general readership.Relation to present state of field and similar work elsewhere: The integration of the fieldsof urban studies and environmental studies is nascent; little work has been conducted whichattempts to integrate these two fields, save those which are normative and do not grapple withall of the elements that might contribute to understanding of the complex nature of urban-ecological transformations. Substantial work has been conducted on environmental racismbut has not been situated in a theoretical framework. Work has been conducted on publicpolicy formation on environmental issues but does not relate these discourses to the contestednature of place construction and the material effects of environmental degradation. This studyhopes to fill this gap by integrating these themes.Professional Development Goals: I plan to develop knowledge and expertise in theemerging field of urbanization and the environment. My strong technical and scientificbackground provides me with a unique perspective by which to investigate environmentalissues which cross disciplinary boundaries between science and engineering and the socialsciences. This project will strengthen and facilitate my familiarity and proficiency with socialscience techniques and methodologies.Description of Project: This is a book-length study that examines environmentaldegradation in urbanized areas in the context of sustainability. Part I describes thedevelopment of my theoretical framework and methodology; part II examines the relationshipbetween urbanization, the environment and globalization; part III details my plans for ananalysis of public policies towards air quality and urban environmental movements; part IVdetails my scheme for inquiry into the discourses of sustainability and ecological security inthe context of urbanization; and part V describes my plans for two case studies of airpollution in urbanized areas.

Part I - Development of Theoretical Framework and MethodologyI will examine how discourses around the environment, urbanization, pollution and

space relate to the nondiscursive aspects of material practices which produce geographicallyuneven environmental degradation. In order to analyze these associated themes concurrently,I will apply Harvey’s conception of the social process as being constituted of ‘moments’.These moments are defined as discourse/language; manifestations of power; the ‘imaginary’– thoughts, fantasies, and desires; institution building; material practices; and social relations(1996: 78-79). These moments are dialectical–they are constituted as internal relations of theothers, which can be described as translations between one moment to another. In order tounderstand the social process, one must look at all the ‘moments’ in their dialecticalrelationships. One cannot analyze just one aspect of the social process-discourse to take an alltoo familiar example-and expect to understand the totality of this process. By taking such adialectical approach, the themes of urbanization, place, pollution and the environment can beintegrated in order to understand the transformations of the material reality of the city.

Communicative action occurs is in the moments of discourse and beliefs – therealms of social life where processes become politicized. As Foucault observes, ‘knowledgeis power’ – discourse cannot be separated from power. Indeed, discourse is a form of power.Discourses serve to create truths – common sense – which gain their status due to coherencewithin the discourse’s own inherent criteria of credibility. These ‘effects of truths’ areparticularly malign because they are linked with institutions which operate as incarnations ofpower. This argument can be extended to the other moments of the social process. Theproduction of environmentally polluted spaces is shaped by hegemonic forces which are, inRaymond Williams formulation, “a whole body of practices and expectations, over the wholeof our living: our senses and assignments of energy, our shaping perceptions of ourselves andour world” (1977: 110). Conflicting effects from different moments in the social processresult in each moment internalizing heterogeneity and therefore open to contestation. AsHarvey observes, “[c]ounter-hegemonic and dissident discourses . . . erupt to challengehegemonic forms and it is out of such contestations that social change may flow” (1996: 89).The conflicts involved in communicative action–the working out of the political–translateinto a transformation of material practices and social relations through institution building.Social change does not just occur through transformations in material practices but this is therealm where politics must converge and change becomes realized in ways that are tangiblerather than imagined.

I will incorporate methodologies from the field of political ecology which seeksexplanations of the topography of ‘politicised environments’. Conceiving of the city of as a‘politicised environment’ helps to overcome the weaknesses inherent in the human-environment dichotomy which is endemic in many environmental research fields. Byconceiving of cities as the result of socio-ecological transformations, one can reconcile thethemes of nature and urbanization. Political ecology has focused largely on the unevendistribution of access to and control over resources on the basis of class and ethnicity. Inkeeping with the concerns of political ecology, I will examine decision-making processes andthe social, political, and economic context that shapes environmental policies and practices.Feminist political ecology attempts to extend the purview of political ecology by treating“gender as a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with class,caste, race, culture, and ethnicity to shape processes of ecological change” (Rocheleau,Thomas-Slayter, & Wangari, 1996: 4). A primary theme of feminist political ecology callsattention to gendered knowledge that seeks to challenge prevailing paradigms of scientificknowledge about the environment and to articulate alternative perspectives on environmentalissues related to personal health and household. A second theme of this approach is theconsideration of gendered environmental rights and responsibilities of control over resources,quality of life, and definitions of healthy and desirable environments. These rights andresponsibilities are often gendered spatially due to differing domains and divisions of accessand control between public and private spaces. A further theme of feminist political ecologyis the focus on gendered environmental politics and grassroots activism. The involvement ofwomen in environmental activism has been shaped by their experiences within theircommunities and threats to a sense of rootedness and survival, and has contributed to aredefinition of their identities, the meaning of gender, and the nature of environmentalproblems. My project will examine the socio-ecological transformations of urbanization bycombining the multi-faceted approach of dialectics with the insights and methodology ofpolitical ecology.

The principal research methods used will be semi-structured interviews anddiscursive analysis of government documents and archival records concerning air and

environmental quality in the greater urban areas studied. In Los Angeles, this material wouldinclude documents related to the 2000 Partnership, its predecessor, the Los Angeles 2000process, as well as documents related to regional integration and trading of air pollutioncredits. I will focus on documents related to transport policy in the greater London area aswell as national goals for sustainable transport policy, including the Road Traffic ReductionBill. The interviews will be conducted with local, regional, and state officials in the airquality agencies, including the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the StateAir Resources Board and its regional offices in Southern California and The Department ofthe Environment, Transport and the Regions in England. In addition, interviews will beconducted with participants in local and regional environmental and communityorganizations, including Mothers of East Los Angeles and Concerned Citizens of SouthCentral in Los Angeles and Friends of The Earth and the Black Enviroment Network inEngland. Questions which will be posed to these members of these organizations will focuson the impetus for their involvement, how they view the traditional environmental movement,and their role in their prospective communities. I will examine the discursive formation ofenvironmental problems and how these processes help to dictate the policies which areimplemented to address these problems.

Part II - Nature, Urbanization and GlobalizationI will dialectically analyze the relations of urbanization and the environment by

conceiving of pollution and the environment as social constructs, by viewing the city as aconstructed and contested ecosystem, and by analyzing the origins of environmentaldegradation in terms of the social relations which are consolidated in cities in the context ofindustrialization, capitalism, and globalization. I will ground these themes by looking at howthese processes relate to local and regional processes, both in terms of uneven geographicalenvironmental degradation, the formation of public policies and the mobilization ofgrassroots environmental organizations.

In order to properly integrate urbanization into ecological and environmentalanalyses, it becomes necessary to dissolve the boundaries between ecological activities andhuman actions. The reaction of the deep ecology movement to a sense of loss of ‘wilderness’and its subsequent idealization of ‘nature’ has led to characterizations of cities as being theantithesis of nature and human actions as being separate from, and completely destructive of,‘nature’. In contrast, human actions which result in transformations and constructions ofecosystems should be conceived of as fundamentally ecological processes. By extension,urbanization processes should be thought of as ecological processes and cities should betreated as constructed ecosystems.

I will develop a conceptual framework in which terms such as environment, natureand pollution are socially constructed and examine how these constructs relate to thebiophysical ‘reality’ of pollution. After all, air pollution and environmental degradation dohave tangible effects upon human health and ecological processes. In Purity and Danger,Mary Douglas investigates rituals of dirt and cleanliness in daily life and examines the socialbasis for pollution beliefs. Mary Douglas’s classic definition of pollution is ‘matter out ofplace’ (1993). She argues that debates on pollution are essentially debates on the preferredsocial order. By defining certain aspects of reality as pollution, ‘nature’, and certain materialpractices as solutions, one seeks to either maintain or change the social order. One needs toask why certain aspects of reality are now singled out as environmental problems and whatkind of social relations are being consolidated in the name of protecting ‘the environment’.As Hajer argues, “[t]o analyze discourses on pollution as quasi-technical decision-making on

well-defined physical issues thus misses the essentially social questions that are implicated inthese debates” (1996: 18).

In order to examine how air pollution is produced on a local and regional scale, Iintend to analyze the ways in which industrialization, capitalism and urbanization haveproduced environmental degradation. I will consider the ways in which Giddens and Gorzhave attempted to “integrate an explanation of the origins and consequences of environmentaldegradation into a broader conceptualization of the development and dynamics of modernsocieties and cities” (Goldblatt, 1996: 7). Giddens has examined the spatial dimensions ofsocial processes which has enabled him to investigate the sociological nature of urbanizationand globalization and their effects upon environmental problems. To complement the work ofGiddens, I will examine how Andre Gorz has delineated the political economy of capitalismand industrialization, pointing out its “insatiable appetite for resources, its conspicuousconsumption, and the dehumanizing consequences of technology” (ibid.: 74).

In order to examine how places became constructed and contested ecosystems, Ineed to examine how the dialectic of the environment and urbanization consolidates aparticular set of social relations through spatial transformations of these ecosystems. Theproduction of spatial relations therefore implies a production of social relations. In seeking tounderstand how environmental degradation is produced and experienced unevenly, I willexamine how ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ are produced in space and place. I will explore how‘geographies of exclusion’ are constructed and how these geographies are important insituating environmental justice movements. By focusing on Foucault’s idea of the ‘micro-politics’ of power and Lefebvre’s idea of the social production of space, I hope todemonstrate how bodies are regulated in space through discourses and practices. I hope togain an understanding how power is reflected in ‘the monopolization of space’ and therelegation of others – women, people of color, gays and lesbians, the poor and working class– to less desirable environments. These voices inhabit the cultural politics of difference –differences of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference. These engagementssuggest that social justice and environmental concerns in cities are inseparable from thepolitics of identity and difference.

In order to situate local and regional social-ecological processes in a global context, Iwill examine the relations between these processes and globalization. These processesinclude discursive moments, such as the representation of ‘environmental problems’, as wellas nondiscursive moments such as flows of capital and labor. These processes can also lead tothe opposite of globalization – fragmentation. Given the generalized nature of academicdiscourse on globalization, my research focus will be on how people’s everyday lives arecaught up in processes of globalization. My choice of Los Angeles and London allows me toinvestigate how the global is expressed locally within two ‘world cities’ where it is widelyaccepted that the “interweaving of global and local development is intense” (Eade, 1997: 3).My intention is not to suggest that people’s lives are shaped entirely by the global city butrather they are participating in a dialectic of global processes which can be analyzed inspecific contexts – London and Los Angeles.

In order to situate discourses of local and regional environmental degradation into aglobal context, I will examine how certain environmental issues have become globalized.This ‘globalization of the environment’ is problematic and tends to distract attention andresources away from local and regional forms of environmental degradation. The discoursewhich has developed on these issues is deficient in its consideration of power relations,cultural identity and moral choices. Sachs views the transformation of this type ofenvironmentalist discourse from an oppositional force to one of domination in its promotion

of strategies to “manage nature and regulate people worldwide” that becomes “wedded to thedominating world-view” (1989: 16). Mirroring Beck’s concept of the risk society, Sachsalludes to the boomerang effect of environmental risk as being the logic by which the Northentreaties for global environmental pacts which “paves the way for worldwide surveillanceand management” (ibid.). The framing of environmental problems in terms of being global innature can be at odds with local environmental situations. Global resource planningrationalizes the protection of ‘nature’ in terms of the world political economy, whereas localconservation efforts protect the ‘environments’ in which people live and work.

Part III - Public Policy and Urban Environmental MovementsWhat constitutes an environmental ‘problem’ is defined as such according to

organizations and individuals who have interpreted the results of scientific investigations and,by their actions, present the issue as requiring attention and exposure. All of these processesoccur in the realms of power, discourse and space. I want to relate how these processes arecontested by local actors as they strive to define and create their own environments in thecontext of racial, ethnic, gender and class discrimination.Environmental Justice Movements

Castells observes that environmental movements have ‘control over space’ and an‘emphasis on locality’ as major, recurrent themes. Castells stresses that technological andeconomic globalization is being challenged by “expressions of collective identity...on behalfof cultural singularity and people’s control over their lives and environment” (1997: 2). Inaddition, I intend to look at the work of David Harvey in his formulations of struggles overthe environment as being, in essence, political and economic in origin. As Harvey states,“[e]cological arguments are never socially neutral any more than socio-political argumentsare ecologically neutral. Looking more closely at the way ecology and politics relate, thenbecomes imperative if we are to get a better handle on how to approach environmental/ecological questions” (1996: 182). Struggles over place and identity are not simplycontingent upon the structures of power inherent in the city itself or even to global processesthat express themselves locally. These politics are intrinsically bound up with the politicaland cultural landscape of the city but are also constituted by the broader histories andmanifestations of colonialism, imperialism, migration, and discrimination and segregationalong the lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality. I will consider how environmentalmovements define themselves in relation to place and time. As Castells observes, “Strugglesover structural transformation are tantamount to fighting for historical redefinition of the twofundamental, material expressions of society: space and time” (1997: 123).

Environmentalism racism as a social process is produced both through discursiveforms of racism, material practices of housing segregation and institutional manifestations ofpower which locate environmental hazards in predominantly ethnic neighborhoods. Bullarddocuments the role that racism plays in environmental planning and decision making which isreinforced by political, economic, and legal institutions (1994). Racism, according to Bullard,“influences the likelihood of exposure to environmental and health risks and the accessibilityto health care” (ibid.: 17). This is compounded by the fact that the most polluted communitiesare often those with crumbling infrastructure, capital flight, deteriorating housing, inadequatepublic schools, chronic unemployment, a high poverty rate and an inadequate and overloadedhealth care system. Housing segregation, urban development and the ‘spatial configuration’of communities are influenced by social, economic, and industrial forces which, in turn, areinfluenced by public policies undertaken by governments – local, state, and national.

In local communities across the United States, people of color, the poor, women,migrant farmworkers and industrial workers have been challenging environmentaldegradation in their communities. These struggles can be thought of as an extension of thesocial movements that arose in response to the urban and industrial forces that came to thefore in the last 100 years in the urbanized areas of the United States. Gottlieb demonstratesthe importance of gender, ethnicity and class in the formation of social movements in theUnited States and how such an analysis is crucial to a proper understanding of thecontemporary environmental movement. The environmental justice movement is radically atodds with both traditional forms of environmentalism and the recent formations ofenvironmentalism which Hajer terms ‘ecological modernization’. It attempts to coupleconcerns for environmental inequalities of the marginalized and impoverished with a “searchfor empowerment and personal self-respect”, (Harvey, 1996: 386) making explicitconnections between social justice and ecological concerns. Urban environmental movementsdraw the connections between zoning, transportation, sanitation and quality of life. Thisreconceptualization of what constitutes environmental problems mobilizes “a revolt againstthe association of ‘pollution’ in its symbolic sense of defilement and degradation withdangerous social disorder and supposed racial impurities of certain groups in the population”(ibid.: 387). Miller, Mallstein, and Quass demonstrate that urban black women’s experiencesand concerns cause them to define ‘environment’ differently and are often the first to noticeand respond to alterations in ‘their’ own environments – their local communities (1996). Theimportance of place in environmental justice movements has been bound up with images ofcommunity. This focus on community and place, on children and on participation and accessto power has created a different conception of environmentalism. This is in stark contrastwith ideas of environmentalism being associated with issues of wilderness preservation andmanagement of resources.Power, Public Policy and Science

I will examine how public policies promoting air quality are produced; howscientific discourses about air pollution and environmental degradation are produced; and theprocesses by which this knowledge has become increasingly relied upon in the formulation ofpublic policy. Looking at evidence that the production of scientific knowledge is deeplyembedded in politics and culture, Jasanoff describes how “[s]cientific knowledge...is a socialconstruct in the sense that it is contingent on human interactions and susceptible to themultiple influences of economics, ideology, culture, and political interests” (Jasanoff inHampson and Reppy, 1996: 175). Indeed, the problematization of environmental issues canbe ascribed partially to their identification by the scientific community. Jasanoff offers anpossible explanation for the appearance of epistemic communities as resulting from themachinations of powerful actors that would “impose a particular vision of natural andpolitical order on the rest of the world” (ibid.: 194). She asks how can the scientificcommunity, which is deeply implicated and embedded in particular political and economicformations, provides an independent mechanism to address the environmental destructionresulting from these formations. The members of such communities are “more likely toperpetuate than deeply challenge the political structures to which they are tied by bonds ofreciprocal legitimation” (ibid.: 194).

Hajer investigates environmental policy-making as ‘the socially accepted set ofpractices’ which address environmental degradation. Hajer’s argument is that we haveentered a regime – ‘ecological modernization’ – in which environmental problems areconceived of in terms of fundamental flaws in modern society, yet suggests that“environmental problems can be solved in accordance with the workings of the main

institutional arrangements of society” (1996: 4). Hajer examines the problematic nature of theemergence of ecological modernization in the Netherlands and Britain in a study of theformation of public policies towards acid rain. Hajer asserts that all framings of theenvironment are ‘story lines’, whether they portray ecological modernization as ‘institutionallearning’ or a ‘technocratic project’, and advocates engagement with a cultural politics whichreveals the social and cultural consequences of adopting any particular ‘story line’. Such anengagement would expose the political issue of democratic control over technology andscientific expertise, their purposes and their limits.

Part IV. Sustainability and UrbanizationThe concepts of sustainable development and sustainability arose due to the dilemma

of whether our technologically-based world economy can be sustainable in the face of whatare presented as environmental constraints. Redclift and Woodgate argue that the concept of‘sustainable development’ is an attempt to bridge the impasse between economic growth andenvironmental protection, which can be seen as contradictory objectives (1994). They echoNash’s view that societies come to value nature and wilderness more as their industrialdevelopment destroys it. The discourses surrounding these terms can lead to conceptualinflation – they have become ‘plastic words’– in which the terms can take on all sorts ofconflicting and competitive meanings. Hence, these terms have come under fire from severaldifferent quarters. Critics ask ‘what is to be sustained?’ Is it is simply–in the definition of theWorld Bank–“development that lasts”? (1992: 34) Sustainability, in order to be a coherentconcept, must imply that we sustain and not destroy processes which are interrelated –ecological processes, cultures and ways of life.

The suspicion is that the sustainable development is a ruse which seeks to sustainhegemonic processes which lead to the destruction of cultures throughout the world. Indeed,there is the danger that even those who might be opposed to these processes falling into thetrap of uncritically accepting and advocating certain practices which are billed as sustainable.Wolfgang Sachs argues that advocates for sustainable development can readily become ‘eco-developers’ who simply expand the purview of the free market “by surveying the broad rangeof life-supporting factors in order to assure the sustainability of the long term” (1995: 13).Escobar makes an connection between the “scientific gaze of the nineteenth-centuryclinician” and the practitioners of sustainable development. For Escobar, “the globe and itsproblems have finally entered rational discourse . . . as the medicine of the pathological led toa medicine of the social space . . . so will the ‘medicine of the Earth’ result in newconstructions of the social that allow nature’s health to be preserved. This new constructionof the social is what the concept of sustainable development attempts to bring into place”(1995: 192-193).

For critics who are sceptical of the sufficiency of sustainability, it too readily denotesstasis or, at best, dynamic equilibrium. These critics argue that sustainable development willbe overwhelmed by increases in population and consumer demand – sustainable developmentitself is not sustainable. The dynamic of the capitalist society depends on the continuousdiscovery and creation of new conditions for the appropriation and consumption of resources,rendering it in opposition to all configurations of sustainability.

I will address questions of ‘meaning’, ‘conceptual basis’, ‘policy’ and‘implementation’ associated with the environment, sustainability and sustainable cities. Thedevelopment of policies aimed at sustainability enlarges the process whereby some lofty butill-defined ideas in the cause of environmentalism become operationally useful. It will benecessary to examine the relations between theory and advocacy on the one hand and policy

and practice on the other. Sustainability is not tightly bound either as a concept or in social,economic and political contexts. Sustainability has a dialectical relationship with discursiveand nondiscursive political economies. These relations require explorations and exposition inboth historical and conceptual scope to establish meaning, principle and relevance.

Chapter 7 of Agenda 21, entitled Promoting Sustainable Human Settlement, arguedthat countries should incorporate an environmental outlook in reviews of their policies,institutions and programs. It promoted the ideas of institutional partnerships, citizenparticipation and innovative approaches in urban planning and development. It stressed theneed for creation of international networks among cities to promote ‘good practice’ and‘good governance’. For sustainable cities to be a useful concept, one needs to consider whatis inferred by its opposite. Sustainable cities are not economically self sufficient cities; theyare not paradigmatic expressions of low technology or simple organizational form and theireconomic processes will sometimes encroach upon exhaustible resources, but with morereflexivity than in the past. A sustainable city will express its sustainability in terms of policymaking, in institutional reform, and in the growth of appropriate technology. All of thesepractices will be expressed in a wide range of interdependent public policies and economicactivities. Environmental policies cannot be bounded; there are in a complex dialecticalrelationship with other social, economic, cultural and political processes.

Part V. Case Studies - The Political Ecology of Air PollutionLos Angeles - Purity and Pollution in the City of Angels

The Los Angeles Basin consistently has the worst air quality of any major city in theUnited States due a combination of high levels of vehicular usage, a large number ofindustrial sources and certain geographical features which trap pollution emissions within thebasin. Long-term exposure has been shown to cause permanent lung damage among life-longresidents. Air pollution and the formation of public policies directed towards air quality inSouthern California has been studied extensively (Grant, 1995 and Fawcett, 1990). However,no work has attempted to integrate the origins, effects and regulation of air pollution in LosAngeles, the mobilization of grassroots environmental organizations, and broader theoreticalconceptions of the construction of space and place. Therefore, Los Angeles is a suitablechoice for a case study of the relationship between urbanization and the environment.

The complex of specialized agencies managing local and imported water, air quality,and other regional environmental problems has a long history reflecting local concerns withthese problems. There is a division of planning and regulatory activities by environmentalmedium which developed as ad hoc responses to the problems and limits of urban growth inSouthern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) mandateis for regulation of stationary sources of air pollution whereas the State Air Resources Board(SARB) and its regional offices address the problem of mobile sources of air pollution.Regulatory separation of industrial and mobile sources of air pollution has diverted attentionto the relationship between environmental degradation and land use patterns. Agencies havefrequently accepted the dominant models of economic development and growth whileattempting to accommodate mandates requiring pollutant reductions but have often failed.The limitations inherent is this structure and outlook of environmental regulation has led topolitical mobilizations which reflect elite concerns about limits to local economic growth andpopular concerns about the quality of life. I will focus the formation of policies at politicaland governmental levels which are directed at integrating environmental regulation andregional economic growth, including the 2000 Partnership and it predecessor, the LosAngeles 2000 process.

In addition, I will examine the work of grassroots environmental justiceorganizations in Los Angeles such as Concerned Citizens of South Central and the Mothers ofEast Los Angeles which arose in response to the planned siting of incinerators in theirrespective communities. I will do so in the context of the struggles for clean air andaccessible public transport on both a local and regional level in California. This research intolocal environmental justice movements has to be placed in the context of the tensions andpossibilities implicit in an understanding of Los Angeles as being a city of ‘difference’. Thisentails a more inclusive and complex analysis of mobilizations which challenge attempts tocommodify ethnic cultures, regulatory control of space and the sustained accumulation ofcapital by commercial enterprises indifferent to local concerns.

London - The Impure in the Big SmokeAir pollution in London still constitutes a major problem despite the fact there have

been dramatic decreases in some emission levels in the last 50 years. In January of 1998, theUK Government Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants stated that air pollutionhastens the death of up to 24,000 people a year in Britain. The City of London was onceenveloped by thick, yellow-green smogs during the autumn and winter months. Largeamounts of suspended particulates and sulphur dioxide from hundreds of thousands of coal-burning households combined with emissions from thousands of industrial plants. Thesesources conspired to produce some of the most noxious smogs known in the history ofindustrial cities. Insidious smog episodes in the 1950s triggered a series of policy initiativeswhich encouraged the conversion of heating appliances to smokeless fuels. In addition, shiftsin London’s industrial base resulted in a dramatic decrease of industrial air pollutionemissions. Beginning in the 1980s pollutant emissions from vehicles increased rapidly due tochanges in the nature and location of employment. Commuters grew reliant upon the car as ameans of transport. These changes encouraged transport policies which produced roadnetworks with the result that shopping centres and other facilities were located further awayfrom residential areas.

It has been generally accepted that one cannot examine the air pollution problemscaused by vehicles in isolation. One must look at the issues of land use and transport; issueswhich cut across a range of spatial scales. Only recently has the British government begun torecognise the limitations of its transport policies. This was due largely to the the ensuinguproar and mass mobilization directed against the construction of the M3 extension acrossTwyford Down. In addition, non-governmental agencies generally play a more direct role inlocal and regional politics than in the United States. Therefore, I will examine nationalorganizations which have been campaigning for transport policies and land rights, includingFriends of the Earth and The Land is Ours. In addition, I will look at local community groupsin east London, as well as alternative formations of environmental groups such as theWomens’ Environmental Network and the Black Environment Network.

In the period since the end of the British Empire, London and other British citieshave experienced the migration of former colonial subjects into the heart of the formerempire in search of opportunity. In the past two decades, east London has experienced twokinds of urban transformation: gentrification and large-scale redevelopment proposals. In thissetting, immigrant struggles over belonging, over the meaning of ‘home’, take place in thecontext of an urban governance and planning system which have not yet incorporated urbanpolicy responses to, or recognition of difference. The involvement of immigrants incommunity organizations, such as in the Spitalfields neighborhood, has provided ademonstration of the viability of a politics of difference to express the objectives of a local

ethnic community as well as the capacity of communities to redefine their 'environments',envisioning their own future as active partners in local economic development.

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