by Jonathan Hiskes
Seattle light rail. Photo courtesy LeeLeFever via Flickr One train, two views:
Getting to the airport from Seattle’s north side—its wealthier, whiter
half—on public transit first involves a bus ride downtown. From there, as of two
months ago, you can take a new
light-rail line, instead of another bus, to Sea-Tac Airport.
This north-side resident found the light rail underwhelming—the train chugs
along at street level at a modest speed, stopping 10 times, even stopping at
times for traffic lights. It’s still faster to take the express bus from
downtown.
So it was interesting to hear a south-side
community organizer speak Wednesday about working during the light-rail planning
process to get precisely the things that annoyed me. “We [told transit
planners] we wanted more stops and we don’t want intersections cut off,” said Yolanda Sinde,
who was speaking at the New
Partners for Smart Growth conference in Seattle.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that people live along
the route, or that a new transit service could be disruptive. But Sinde’s
comments were a reminder that low-carbon development in cities—or
anywhere—isn’t always equally beneficial to all communities.
It was a message driven home by others at the
urban-planning event: the principles of Smart Growth may be climate-friendly, but they haven’t always benefitted
low-income and minority neighborhoods.
“What is the difference between Smart Growth and
gentrification? This is a big question,” said Deeohn Ferris, an
environmental-health lawyer, consultant, and former official at the EPA and
National Wildlife Federation.
She questioned the myth that revitalizing poor
neighborhoods requires outside residents, outside role models, and outside
businesses. This attitude fails to appreciate the social networks and
entrepreneurship potential already in those places, she said.
Urban planners often look to build new
developments on abandoned lots and industrial sites—but that strategy isn’t
necessarily popular with locals. “For
many, ‘Smart Growth’ means fancy infill from outside people,” Ferris said.
“‘Infill’ is a scary word to many communities.”
The environmental and social benefits of building
better cities coincide with each other much more than they conflict (I look
forward to learning more about this at this week’s conference). But enthusiasts
of Smart Growth/New Urbanism/happy-walkable-what-have-you design would do well
to work with environmental-justice leaders like Sinde and Ferris, who have
decades’ worth of knowledge about what poorly crafted development can do to
neighborhoods.
Related Links:
The people speak out in favor of stronger smog standards
EPA capitulates on ethanol, hearts clean coal
