Somewhere to walk

            “Economic degradation begets environmental degradation which begets social degradation,” explained Majora Carter to her influential audience at a 2006 TED talk. Carter understood this sequence all too well. When her father bought the family home, South Bronx was a “walk to work community.” Within twenty years, there was nowhere worth walking. Empty storefronts and torched apartment buildings lined sidewalks that led to no jobs and no supermarkets. Highway construction displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, turning the Bronx into a major artery for some other county’s health. Majora’s brother, who survived Vietnam, was gunned down two blocks from her home. “There was a crack house across the street,” she explained, her voice breaking.

This tragic and familiar description of the ghetto, she reminded her audience, did not just randomly happen. It was a result of urban planning, of creating easy access for white commuters to Manhattan money. Environmental degradation followed quickly upon the heels of economic degradation. It wasn’t surprising that a community that looked as bad as the South Bronx began to think of itself as incapable of doing well. Perhaps social degradation was part of the plan.

For people who heard Majora Carter last month at the Slow Living Summit, you know that she is no ordinary social critic, no anti-capitalist community organizer. My leftist friends may not agree with me, she told the Latchis audience, but I believe “we should have a smaller government.” Carter has always been clear about the role of private business in sustainability. “Awake your inner capitalist,” she urged the 2006 Ted talk audience. “Let me be clear. I am not anti-development. Ours is a city, not a wilderness preserve.”

The environmental component of Carter’s equation, its middle position in the chain of begetting, suggests a different way of thinking about the problem of urban poverty. Without the environment, one could imagine a campaign that asked for more jobs, usually public sector jobs, and more social services. With the environment playing a key role, the focus is more on the place itself, on the condition of the river, and the number of diesel trucks passing through. The organization that Carter created, Sustainable South Bronx, is pushing for a green esplanade along the Bronx River, with bike shops and juice stands. Promoting green jobs and ecological stewardship training, the organization avoids ideological political differences by pushing for places where human beings can feel more fully alive.

Around the world, cities once written off are remaking themselves in a greener image. In Bogota, Columbia, Mayor Enrique Penalosa severely limited car use, expanded pedestrian walkways and bike paths, and designed an aggressive, sleek public bus system. He may not have survived the next election but, according to socialearth.org, the city’s crime rate dropped by 70% over the course of 10 years. By not accommodating the city to commuters, the place became more hospitable for the citizens. When the people had some place to walk, they not only stopped littering, they began to see themselves as people who deserved a beautiful city.

Healthy societies are able to create economies that serve them. Degraded societies are reduced to making money through immediate means, through selling crack or protecting the turf of the local drug lord. Give people sidewalks that lead to river esplanades and they will want more for “their” river. Make it easier to ride a bicycle to work and they will want better air quality. In the South Bronx, a greener citizenry no longer accepts that diesel trucks need to sit idling as they wait to load containers from the docks at Hunts Points. They no longer believe the thoroughfares are necessary for the economic health of Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg seems to be responding. As part of Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, by 2030 every New Yorker will live within a 10-minute walk of a park.

Even if PlaNYC, which was launched in 2007, isn’t able to deliver on its initial promises, the fact that citizens now expect a park or greenway to be close to each of their homes shows how environmental expectations beget social expectations, which beget economic expectations. The argument that another highway must be built in order to bring in more jobs is less politically palatable than it was fifty years ago. The idea that some communities can be destroyed so that others will prosper is less viable as ghettos transform themselves into “environmental justice communities.” And the notion that some workers cannot walk to work because the needs of car-bound commuters trump sidewalks and bike lanes is no longer credible in the South Bronx.

These hardest-hit communities, places like the South Bronx and Bogota where social degradation was as expected as gravity, are showing the rest of us how to move out of a downward spiral. As the economy falters, we must turn to the land for inspiration. With fewer people able to own cars, we must make it easier to get around without an automobile. With less money available for travel, we must make it simpler to get to a park by the river. Hold tight to the land and society will not come apart. And if it does come apart, if young men are shot in the streets and people sell crack next door, then start working on bikeways and esplanades and other ways to be outside to beget a better world.