Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Transition to the Sustainable City: Values, Philosophy, and Action

Abstract

Cities in the United States have faced declining public funds for at least two decades, and in California since the passage of the 1978 property tax initiative, Proposition 13. The first areas cut were parks and recreation. This chapter describes the emerging new urban ecosystem and greenspace public/private initiatives for greater urban sustainability taking place in Los Angeles. It argues that a complex heterarchic (self-organizing) set of opportunistic relationships and programs have evolved involving tree planting, stormwater infiltration, small park creation and street tree planting. They are led by public/nonprofit partnerships and characterized by opportunism. Little accountability or transparency exists – there are rarely public hearings or documents that can be accessed by the public. This is quite different than the twentieth sanitary/modernist city that was built on siloed departments with public hearings, developed workplans and capital budgets (Melosi MV, The sanitary city, urban infrastructure in America from colonial times to the present. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2000). While projects are created and implemented, they are done so with the expectation of public acceptance – but no hearings or consultation. In low income communities, they may create an additional burdens of responsibility and labor for maintaining these new infrastructures.