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- All Subjects: Environmentalism
- Creators: Hirt, Paul
- Status: Published
Description
Postwar suburban sprawl resulted in environmental consequences that engendered backlash from those concerned about the quality life in the places they lived, played, and worked. Few cities grew as rapidly as Phoenix and therefore the city offers an important case study to evaluate the success and limits of environmentalism in shaping urban growth in the postwar period.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
ContributorsDi Taranto, Nicholas (Author) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Vandermeer, Philip (Committee member) / Smith, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Natural resources management is a pressing issue for Native American nations and communities. More than ever before, tribal officials sit at the decision-making tables with federal and state officials as well as non-governmental natural resource stakeholders. This, however, has not always been the case. This dissertation focuses on tribal activism to demonstrate how and why tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and treaty rights protection are tied closely to contemporary environmental issues and natural resources management. With the Klamath Tribes of southern Oregon as a case study, this dissertation analyzes how a tribal nation garnered a political position in which it could both indirectly influence and directly orchestrate natural resource management within and outside of its sovereign boundaries. The Klamath Tribes experienced the devastating termination policy in the 1950s. Termination stripped them of their federal status as an Indian tribe, the government services offered to recognized tribes, and their 1.2-million-acre reservation. Despite this horrific event, the Klamaths emerged by the 2000s as leading natural resource stakeholders in the Klamath River Watershed, a region ten times larger than their former reservation. The Klamaths used tools, such as their treaty and water rights, and employed careful political, legal, and social tactics. For example, they litigated, appropriated science, participated in democratic national environmental policy processes, and developed a lexicon. They also negotiated and established alliances with non-governmental stakeholders in order to refocus watershed management toward a holistic approach that promoted ecological restoration.
This study applies spatial theory and an ethnohistorical approach to show how traditional values drove the Klamaths’ contemporary activism. From their perspective, healing the land would heal the people. The Klamaths’ history illuminates the active roles that tribes have had in the institutionalization of the federal self-determination policy as federal agencies resisted recognizing tribes and working with them in government-to-government relationships. Through their efforts to weave their interests into natural resource management with state, federal, and non-governmental stakeholders, the Klamaths took part in a much larger historical trend, the increased pluralization of American society.
This study applies spatial theory and an ethnohistorical approach to show how traditional values drove the Klamaths’ contemporary activism. From their perspective, healing the land would heal the people. The Klamaths’ history illuminates the active roles that tribes have had in the institutionalization of the federal self-determination policy as federal agencies resisted recognizing tribes and working with them in government-to-government relationships. Through their efforts to weave their interests into natural resource management with state, federal, and non-governmental stakeholders, the Klamaths took part in a much larger historical trend, the increased pluralization of American society.
ContributorsBilka, Monika (Author) / Fixico, Donald L (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015