Reply #10: and the highway beautification projects, too [View All]

[Lisa]

She was also one of the first people to make the connection between poverty and environmental destruction. This helped shift the debate from environment vs. jobs ("tree-huggers don't understand that we can't hamstring the economy just to protect nature") to a broader understanding of how poor communities are often "sacrificed" (as industrial sites or toxic waste dumps). When she argued that it wasn't right for the rich to have a monopoly on beautiful things and places, while the poor had to live in ugly, dangerous settings ... it was the beginning of some significant changes in attitudes. I know that some right-wingers still argue that poor people "don't deserve" a healthy, clean, safe environment -- that they are too stupid/lazy/wicked. But a growing number of citizens (and planners and policymakers) are turning against that mindset.

Last year I had my students look at the most scenic and inviting places around town, and assess how open the access was. They were startled to find out that in the majority of cases, you had to live in an upscale neighborhood, or own a car, in order to get to them. There were financial (and in some cases, legal) constraints on poor people enjoying such settings. Ladybird had talked about this kind of thing decades before these kids were born.