Risk and Spatial Planning

Abstract

Proponents of site-specific hazardous technologies and members of involved communities are often in conflicting positions regarding the most appropriate location for their siting. Because of the component of uncertainty that characterizes the assessment of the potential consequences of these technologies and the different perception of risks by the side of individuals, the “where of risks” is rarely uncontroversial.

This chapter discusses the relation between “risks” and “space” and argues, in particular, on its moral implications. Such implications regard the land use planning evaluations related to the risks (e.g., of the release of hazardous substances or radioactive emissions) arising from these technologies. These risks constitute the main locational criteria. This chapter reflects on the moral legitimacy of the development and outcomes of locational assessments by arguing on possible forms of synergy between spatial planning theories and ethical theories.

In the first part of this chapter, a concrete example of a European chemical safety regulation (namely, Directive 96/82/EC on Hazardous Substances, the so-called Seveso Directive) is discussed. Article 12 of the Directive, that is, the “Control of Urbanization” requirement, requires member states to assess and maintain opportune safety distances from Seveso establishments according to the risk of major accidents. This requirement is of particular interest in the context of this chapter as it offers the opportunity to investigate different methods used to perform the assessment of safety distances that are “spatially relevant” safety measures. Such methods are implemented in selected European countries. Their differences relate not only to considerations of technical nature but also to different cultural attitudes toward risk. Somehow there are also non-explicit, although identifiable different ethical assumptions at their basis. These assumptions and their implications will be therefore discussed.

The second part of this chapter focuses on the matter of framing the “siting risks” issue correctly. The matter of overcoming the predominant tendency of interpreting all siting controversies as “not-in-my-backyard” (in the following: NIMBY) situations will be discussed in detail. It is proposed that controversies that do evidently lose, along their development, identifiable spatial and temporal dimensions may signal a general social opposition to a given technological development rather than a merely local rejection of a technological installation. This distinction between site-specific and “a-site” controversies is particularly important for both the planning theory and practice. Spatial planning processes are the appropriate framework for addressing and solving NIMBY cases; however, they become merely instrumental in those cases in which it is not the “where” but the “if” of the technology to be object of discussion. As it will be discussed the moral implications to be considered in the two different circumstances are of remarkably different nature. Arguing on the distinctive elements of NIMBY versus non-NIMBY cases does therefore occupy this part.

Having presented some examples of European national approaches to the siting of hazardous installations and having provided the distinctive elements of the cases to be framed within a spatial planning discourse, the final part of this chapter concentrates on the possible integration of ethical and spatial planning theories. By referring to the Rawlsian theory of justice (1971) as applied to spatial planning theories by Moroni (1997), a conception of “spatial safety” as primary spatial good is proposed. By taking this perspective aim of the spatial planning practice in a fair society becomes distributing spatial safety equally up to the lowest societal level. As it will be argued this theoretical approach to the distribution of spatial safety in society has important, and promising, implications particularly for the planning practice. First, it implies an evaluative shift from the single siting case to the higher regional or national scale; second, next to spatial and risk tolerability criteria it provides the planner with a moral criterion (i.e., the fair distribution of risks in society) for justifying the outcomes of locational assessments. Indications for the further research needed to strengthen this fruitful integration of risk, spatial planning, and ethical theories in the context of hazardous facility siting are provided in the conclusive part of this chapter.