Joseph F.C. DiMento

The Viability of Voluntary Visitability: A Case Study of Irvine's Approach

“Visitability,” or access for persons with disabilities, especially those using wheelchairs, to domestic buildings, such as houses and condominiums, is emerging as a matter requiring policy discussion, if not intervention and guidance. Few cities, counties, or states in the United States of America have policies in this area. Irvine, California, was an early jurisdiction to take up this concern and opted for a voluntary private initiative. This is a case study of visitability in Irvine. It reveals that the voluntary approach was not working as expected; few homebuyers were opting for the visitability features. In an unexpected positive development, builders began to voluntarily include several visitability components. This raises interesting questions regarding whether visitabilty ought to be a public policy, with regulatory force to compel compliance, or voluntary, and if the latter, who (builder or home buyer) should select which visitability elements to adopt, and how to address social equity and justice concerns.

Criminal Enforcement of Environmental Law

In recent years, policymakers in the United States and worldwide have paid great attention to the criminal sanction as a tool for reaching environmental objectives. This article offers several arguments for the application of this penalty to behaviors that degrade the natural environment. Some are based on its deterrent capacity; some are less practical, focusing on a moral imperative to punish those who threaten human health or destroy natural resources. But arguments against criminalizing environmental law are also numerous. They emphasize its high costs, procedural complexity, and potential overkill effects. Decisions about the appropriate applicability of criminal sanctions need to be based on an evaluation of their actual legal and organizational advantages and disadvantages and a knowledge of other promising ideas to foster compliance. Such ideas range from subsidizing the polluter to publicizing his or her good or ill deeds.

They Treated Me Like a Criminal

Efforts to achieve compliance with environmental law most often focus on a strong enforcement policy. As in many other areas of the criminal justice system, the almost unavoidable conclusion is that laws do not function smoothly because of a weak or nonexistent enforcement approach. Not enough violators are identified; when identified, not enough are sanctioned; and when they are sanctioned, penalties are insufficiently severe to communicate the fact that violations will not be tolerated.

Stent (or Dagger?) in the Heart of Town: Urban Freeways in Syracuse, 1944-1967

This is a case study of decision making on urban freeways in American cities using Syracuse, New York. Although many transportation decisions have affected this central New York city, among the most important are those surrounding the state and interstate highways through Syracuse (New York State Thruway and Interstates 81 and 690). The author traces important steps and events in the citys decisions to allow major highways to traverse the city center, decisions that had important effects on patterns of urban formation, growth, and decline. The case is another illustration of the importance of urban freeways in city history. Information sources are historical archives and secondary data. The case suggests that Syracuse falls into a class of cities whose fates are dependent to a great extent on major forces linked to the transportation sector but whose urban infrastructure decisions and growth patterns are not alike. These patterns are related to a set of interacting phenomena— from timing of transportation decisions within an environment of changing state and federal funding opportunities and environmental law to governmental philosophy. Central to the city outcome was the convergence, before and relatively early in the evolution of environmental and preservation law and policy, of the city planning goals of “slum clearance” and redevelopment (later, urban renewal), on the one hand, and the transportation goals of eliminating congestion and improving vehicle mobility, on the other. Also important was the availability of nonlocal funding to a fiscally conservative city administration, one that was also deferential, often legally obligated to be, to state highway planning directions.

EQUAL ACCESS? TRAVEL BEHAVIOUR CHANGE IN THE CENTURY FREEWAY CORRIDOR, LOS ANGELES

Construction and operation of the Century Freeway (1-105) created problems for and presented opportunities to the socioeconomically diverse south Los Angeles County area. Early decisions regarding the interstate facility effected economic decline of the area, encouraging disinvestment and forcing dislocation of residents. However, construction and operation provided job and housing opportunities in a depressed area, relieved urban congestion on arterial streets and other highways and provided a direct route to Los Angeles International Airport. In this study, travel behaviour benefits to local residents are analysed. We report modest changes in routes taken to work and shopping, general satisfaction with time and money savings associated with the system and impressive subsistence travel-time decreases for automobile trips. However travel-time benefits are not shared equally across ethnic groups and geographical locations. We discuss these findings in the context of higher percentages of central city-area residents reporting that the Century is not a route to work for them.

PERSPECTIVE: The National Environmental Policy Act at 35

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed into law by Richard M. Nixon on January 1, 1970; this year marks its 35th birthday. NEPA was the first of the major environmental statutes passed during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Its requirement that the environmental consequences of actions be evaluated before implementation has been copied by a number of states, some municipalities and tribal governments, and over 100 other jurisdictions around the world. We believe this is an appropriate time to look at some of the issues surrounding NEPA and make suggestions regarding future directions. The authors acknowledge the contribution of ideas by Helen Ingram, University of California, Irvine; Jo Ann Beckwith, Michigan State University; and Jon Allan, CMS Energy Corp. The Editorial Staff is grateful to Michael R. Thomas, Environmental Practice Advisory Board, for his role in obtaining this manuscript. A portion of this article first appeared as a letter to the editor in Science 307:674 (February 4, 2005).

The Noncompliance Problem

The Frezzo, Distler, Inmont, and Chrysler cases help introduce the problem of gaining compliance with the nation’s environmental laws.

Historical Pollution and Criminal Liability in the United States

“Historical pollution” in the United States may mean many things. For the purposes of the definition used in our project, the United States has a fairly evolved framework for addressing the phenomena. As a common law country, traditional and newly interpreted tort law may be applicable. So too, traditional criminal law can be and has been utilized. Before modern historical pollution legislation was enacted, legal means existed to punish historical pollution and to remediate and remove orphan dumps, related pollution and its effects—and to compensate victims. Most important now is federal (and some state) law passed specifically to address the massive historical pollution discovered several decades ago. Central is the Superfund law, which provides for rules of liability, punishment, removal, remediation, and compensation. It has had considerable success, after inefficient and expensive beginnings. Thus, U.S. laws of several kinds are relevant to the types of scenarios noted in this report. Complicating the analysis further is the need for several factual assumptions to make the scenarios realistic under U.S. law and the various interpretations of the arsenal of relevant law.

The Behavior of Compliance

The environmental decade has been described as long on symbolic response to pollution and short on effective controls. A concomitant view is that environmental laws are so legislated and so administered that meaningful compliance is rare. Statistics on noncompliance (Chapters 1 and 2) and arguments against strategies for getting compliance (Chapter 3) generate negative views of the efficacy of environmental law.

Mushrooms and Mercuries

James and Guido Frezzo are mushroom farmers in Avondale, Pennsylvania. They inherited this business from their father, who began it in the 1930s after he decided to give up quarrying in western Pennsylvania. Since then all family members have been mushroom farmers or have been married to mushroom farmers.