RACE’S ROLE IN URBAN SPRAWL (Part I)

  • Urban sprawl sometimes conjures up images of subdivisions sprouting up in cornfields. But land use experts say the term should also include a focus on the central cities that are left behind. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White flight began the exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in perpetuating sprawl. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often overlooked:

Transcript

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White
flight began the
exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in
perpetuating sprawl.
In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often
overlooked:


Land use advocates argue that urban sprawl and deteriorating inner cities are two
sides of the
same coin. The tax money that pays for new roads and sewer systems for sprawl and the
investments that pay for new strip malls is money that’s spent at the expense of
city centers
because it’s not invested there.


For the most part, all of that investment is made in communities that are
overwhelmingly white.
Those left behind in the cities are often people of color who are struggling with
high taxes to pay
for the deteriorating infrastructure and government services designed for
populations much larger
than are left today.


White flight was aided by government and business institutions. Government home
loans for
veterans of World War II that made those nice subdivisions possible didn’t seem to
make it into
the hands of black veterans. Banks often followed a practice of redlining. And
real estate
brokers also worked to make sure the races remained segregated.


Reynolds Farley is a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population
Studies
Center. Farley says today, when planners and government officials talk about white
flight and
segregation, they talk in the past tense. They don’t like to acknowledge that
racism like that
still exists…


“Well, I think there is a lot of effort to underestimate the continued importance of
racial
discrimination and the importance of race in choosing a place to live. There’s been
a modest
decrease in segregation in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, it would be a serious
mistake to
overlook the importance of race in the future of the older cities of the Northeast
and Midwest.”


Farley says as recently as two years ago a federal government study looked at real
estate
marketing practices and found there were still “code phrases” that indicated whether
neighborhoods were white or black.


“Subtle words would clearly convey to white customers the possibility that there are
blacks
living there, the schools aren’t in good quality. And the subtle words could convey
to blacks
that they wouldn’t be welcomed in living in a white neighborhood.”


In the North… racism has evolved from overt to covert. It’s a wariness between
the races not talked about in polite society. It becomes more evident as solidly
middle-class blacks begin to move into older suburbs and whites flee once again to
newer
subdivisions even farther from the city core.


Land Use and ‘Smart Growth’ advocates say it’s time to face up to the continuing
practice of
segregation. Charlene Crowell is with the Michigan Land Use Institute. She says it
starts by
talking about the fears between white people and black people.


“By not addressing those fears, the isolation and the separation has grown. So,
until we are able
to talk and communicate candidly, then we’ll continue to have our problems.”


But it’s uncomfortable for most people to talk about race with people of another
race. Often we
don’t talk frankly. Crowell says we’ll be forced to deal with our feelings about
race sooner or
later. That’s because as more African-Americans join the middle-class, the suburbs
are no longer
exclusively white…


“My hope is that those who feel comfortable in moving further and further away from
the urban
core will come to understand that they cannot run, that there are in fact black
homeowners who
are in the suburbs and moving into the McMansions just as many whites are. And we
all have to
look at each other. And we all have to understand that this is one country and we
are one
people.”


In cities such as Detroit, white flight led to rampant urban sprawl in the
surrounding areas
and left huge pockets of poverty and streets of abandoned houses in the inner city.
Heaster
Wheeler is the Executive Director of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP. He says
while his
constituents often worry about more pressing urban issues, he knows that it’s
important that
African-Americans living in the city recognize farmland preservation and urban
revitalization
are connected. The investment that paves over a corn field is investment that’s not
going to
rebuild the city. But… black politicians largely have not been
involved in land use issues and usually they’re not asked to get involved…


“There is a racial divide on this particular issue. Often times African-Americans,
people of color and folk who live in the urban centers are not present at the
discussions about
Smart Growth.”


Wheeler says policymakers on both sides of the racial divide need to recognize that
land use
issues are as much about abandoned city centers as they are about disappearing
farmland…
which could put urban legislators and rural legislators on the same team. That’s a
coalition
that could carry a lot of sway in many states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Region Lagging in Underground Storage Tank Clean-Up

Some states are slow to put together federally approved programs to clean up underground storage tanks leaking fuel and other contaminants into the surrounding soil and water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some states are slow to put together federally approved programs to clean up underground
storage tanks leaking fuel and other contaminants into the surrounding soil and water. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


There are two confirmed releases for every three underground storage tanks at service stations
and other places. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a program to identify and clean up those leaky tanks. According to information garnered from the EPA’s website, most states
comply. But of the 17 states that don’t, six are Great Lakes states. In the region, only Minnesota
and Pennsylvania have approved Underground Storage Tank programs.


The remaining states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New York, have their
own programs with sometimes different standards. There’s a backlog of 36,500 leaky
underground storage tanks to be cleaned up in the Great Lakes states. That’s 28 percent of the
nation’s total backlog. By far… Michigan and Illinois have the most sites, each having a backlog
of nearly 9,000 underground storage tanks to be cleaned up.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Epa Administrator Touring Great Lakes

This spring, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt was asked to head up a task force to coordinate local, state, and federal agencies in cleaning up the Great Lakes. Now he’s touring the region to learn more. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lucy Nalpathanchil reports:

Transcript

This spring, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt was asked to head up a task
force to coordinate local, state, and federal agencies in cleaning up the
Great Lakes. Now he’s touring the region to learn more. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lucy Nalpathanchil reports:


EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt recently stopped in Buffalo, New York to see
Lake Erie firsthand. Leavitt met up with two local fisherman and he tried to catch some walleye.
He came back empty handed but the fishermen did teach him about how invasive species are
impacting the Great Lakes.


“I had the chance to actually see a zebra mussel. And to understand from
their perspective of 100 years what’s changed in the lake and what their
aspirations are. They told me about wanting the next generation to be able to
catch blue. They haven’t caught any since the 50’s.”


Leavitt will visit other Great Lakes communities this summer. A report by his task force on Great
Lakes cleanup is due next year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lucy Nalpathanchil.

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Utility Deregulation Leaving Consumers Behind?

A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:

Transcript

A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says
costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:


Several states in the Midwest and elsewhere have tried to foster
competition in the utility industry. The National Association of State
Public Interest Research Groups says some business customers have been
able to save money by shopping around, but most residential electric
customers have not seen the same benefits. In fact, study author Tony
Dutzik says in some states with market restructuring, rate caps are
coming off.


“And there has been widespread concern in a number of those places that
when those rate caps do come off, consumers could be facing significant
increases in rates, and indeed has happened in a couple of instances
where rate caps have been lifted already.”


Dutzick says electric competition has also led to a lack of long-term
planning that could trigger more blackouts and other reliability
problems, but utilities in some states say to make the system more
reliable they’re trying to boost the supply of electricity. The
companies say rates in the region are still a relative bargain.


For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Report Says Beach Closings at All Time High

A new report says the nation’s beaches were closed a record number of times last year because of high bacteria levels in the water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A new report says the nation’s beaches were closed a record number
of times last year because of high bacteria levels in the water. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:


The Natural Resources Defense Council releases a beach report every
year. It’s based on data from the previous summer. The NRDC says,
last season, there were more than 18,000 closings or advisories –
that’s more than any summer in the past 14 years.


Nancy Stoner is with the NRDC. She says health officials are doing a
better job of testing beaches and that has lead to more beach closings.
Stoner says it’s good that more beaches are being tested… but she
says most communities are failing to control pollution sources.


“We know where the problem comes from and that’s contaminated
storm water and sewage. One of the big problems this year is that the
Clean Water State Revolving Fund has been slashed in the White
House budget. And Congress has not restored that funding.”


Stoner calls the funding critical for cities to repair aging sewer and
storm water systems. The NRDC is calling on Congress to restore the
cuts to the fund in the fall.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Raccoon Rabies Making Its Way West

Raccoons from East Coast states are spreading rabies westward… and health officials say some animals are getting past their immunization barrier. That could be bad news for other Great Lakes states, particularly Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The rabid raccoons are a threat because they can bite dogs and cats… and those animals, in turn, can bite humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:

Transcript

Raccoons from East Coast states are spreading rabies westward… and
health officials say some animals are getting past their immunization
barrier. That could be bad news for other Great Lakes states,
particularly Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
The rabid raccoons are a threat because they can bite dogs and cats…
and those animals, in turn, can bite humans. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:


For seven years, Ohio has tried to keep raccoons with rabies on the Pennsylvania side of its
border. Airplanes and helicopters have dropped vaccine-laden biscuits for raccoons to eat… to
immunize the animals and stop the spread of the disease westward. But now comes word that two
rabid raccoons have made it past the 25 mile-wide immunization zone.


Kathleen Smith is a veterinarian for the Ohio Health Department. She notes the biscuit drops are a practical tactic in an area that’s hemmed in by Lake
Erie and the Ohio river… but if the disease pushes deeper into Ohio, the
immunizations won’t be practical… and states to the west will be infected.


“If it gets past our barrier, northeast Ohio, it would be too cost prohibitive to use the oral vaccine to
stop it from spreading out of the state into the Midwest.”


Officials are asking northeast Ohio residents to tell them about any dead raccoons they spot,
even road kill, so authorities can try to figure out how the disease is moving westward.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.

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Bioblitz: Bugs and Birds in Your Backyard

  • A fish sample from this summer's BioBlitz in Ohio. (Photo courtesy of the Geauga Park District)

Hundreds of tiny plants and animals live in our city parks. But most people are too busy enjoying themselves to bother thinking about the critters… let alone to get down on their hands and knees and look for them. Now a campaign is underway to get people to take a closer look at what’s living in their neighborhood parks. The effort is called a “BioBlitz.” It pairs volunteers with scientists. They go into natural areas and see how many different species they can identify. The idea is to show the important role city parks can play in preserving diverse wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray attended a BioBlitz and has this report:

Transcript

Hundreds of tiny plants and animals live in our city parks. But most
people are too busy enjoying themselves to bother thinking about the
critters… let alone to get down on their hands and knees and look for
them. Now a campaign is underway to get people to take a closer look at
what’s living in their neighborhood parks. The effort is called
a”BioBlitz.” It pairs volunteers with scientists. They go into natural
areas and see how many different species they can identify. The idea
is to show the important role city parks can play in preserving diverse
wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray attended a
BioBlitz and has this report:


A small crowd of people is gathered around a table at a picnic shelter.
They’re not reaching for the mustard. Instead they’re watching Bob
Howe open a metal, shoe box-shaped trap… to see what comes out.


“Yeah, there he is, a masked shrew.” “Wow.”


Howe is a Professor of Applied Science at the University of Wisconsin,
Green Bay. He’s at Baird Creek Park… dumping the little, brown
masked shrew into a clear plastic display cage. It darts under a pile
of grass, probably wondering what the heck’s going on.


“There he is wow, he’s tiny.” ‘What is he?’
“He’s called a masked shrew. Sorex cinereus. It’s our smallest mammal in
Wisconsin. A very common species though most people never see them.”


The shrews are apparently rarely seen because they’re so small… not
even half the size of a toy rubber mouse you’d give your cat to play
with.


It’s obscure animals like this that the BioBlitz is all about.
Organizer Tammy Lee is with the group Great Lakes Forever. She wants
people to take time out from barbecuing… and think about the other
beings that share the park with them.


“And just to make them say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that yellow billed
cuckoo exists here or that salamander.'”


Lee says BioBlitzes are deliberately staged in urban or suburban parks –
not wildlife sanctuaries -to drive home the point that wildlife doesn’t
always
stay within the boundaries of a preserve. It’s in our own backyards.


“Somewhere that they can walk to, something they can go to, not
necessarily to look for biodiversity, but they might come here to play a
baseball game or play on the playground.”


“Hey do you guys want to help me catch some bugs?”


Volunteer Joan Berkopec is corralling a young brother and sister team.
She
hands the kids cloth nets and leads them beyond the merry go
round and the slide to a patch of waist high wildflowers.


They make a few sweeps with the nets, then sit on the grass to see what
they
came up with.


“Oh Lydia! You have a bunch of stuff in here. You have a
grasshopper.”


“Oh… everything’s getting away!”


The nature hunters lose a few flying insects out of their nets, but in
a matter of minutes they’re able to grab five or ten other funny
looking bugs and put them in sample jars.


They’ll take the bugs back to the Park Shelter where professional
scientists
will identify them. By the end of the 12-hour BioBlitz in the park
they’ll
have identified 571 different species.


Professor Bob Howe, recovered from the excitement of the masked shrew
discovery, thinks this park harbors more than 800 different types of
wildlife depending on the season.


“Well, one species that we suspect is nesting there is Wilson’s fowler, which
is a species found in just a few places in the entire state. We’ve also found
a number of what’re called forest interior bird species like scarlet tanager and wood thrush.
That indicates this forest is intact and quite a good habitat for breeding
birds.”


Not bad for a city park.


Howe says it’s important to have a lot of different species living
together.
Without certain trees, some birds wouldn’t come around. Without the
birds… certain insects would proliferate… and so on. Also, Howe
says city parks filter out all sorts of pollutants such as fertilizers
before they get
into lakes and streams.


More BioBlitzes are going on in Wisconsin this summer. The events have
also
been held in places like Chicago and in New York’s Central Park.


For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray.

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A Legal Victory for ‘Rails to Trails’

  • Bicyclists enjoy Minnesota's Cannon Valley Trail. (Photo by Patricia Schmid, courtesy of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy)

Private landowners say their rights are being trampled on by hikers when the state implements “Rails to Trails” programs. The landowners claim the property should be theirs now that the railroad is finished with the right-of-way. One state recently won the court’s approval to keep its trail intact, including pieces that cross through private property. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover reports:

Transcript

Private landowners say their rights are being trampled on by hikers when the state
implements “Rails to Trails” programs. The landowners claim the property should be
theirs now that the railroad is finished with the right-of-way. One state recently won the
court’s approval to keep its trail intact, including pieces that cross through private
property. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover reports:


Mike Sandberg doesn’t want a public trail going through his backyard.


“Every time anybody goes down it the dogs are barking and I didn’t move out in the
country to hear all the stuff going on with everybody’s, you know, it’s kind of a pain.”


Sandberg bought the land he lives on from his brother a couple years ago. One thing he
liked about the property was that it had a dirt trail running through it, and he thought he
could pave it and use it as a driveway.


The trail used to be a railroad bed. The railroad company laid the tracks in the 1890’s,
after getting the rights to go through hundreds of different properties. Usually they only
had an easement to use the property, but every deed was a little different. There was no
standardized legal form, and most of the deeds were written by hand.


Of course, over the next hundred years, people stopped using the train so much. In
Minnesota, the railroad company sold a lot of its land rights to the Department of Natural
Resources in 1991. Similar deals were passed all across the country, and many states, like
Minnesota, used this land to build public trails.


The path that passes through Sandberg’s property is one of these trails, the Paul Bunyan
Trail. It’s popular with bikers, dog-walkers, in-line skaters, and in the winter,
snowmobilers.


Terry McGawhee is Executive Director of the Paul Bunyan Trail
Association, and he’s constantly lobbying the state legislature to expand the trail or pave
parts of it that are still dirt.


“Not every community embraces the trail, but those that have, have seen significant
economic influence on their communities. And the majority of the people along the 100
miles of the trail are eager to see the trail development.”


The state had held off on further work on the trail because of a lawsuit filed by Sandberg’s
brother and several other landowners. Sandberg said the railroad company didn’t own the
trail on his property, so they couldn’t have sold it to the state.


“The abstract states clearly in layman’s terms it was an easement that the railroad had and
when they quit using it for railroad purposes it should go back to the landowner.”


That’s the reasoning Sandberg’s brother and other landowners used when they blockaded
parts of the trail back in 1998. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources sued
them, and was initially successful. The landowners appealed, however, and the Appeals
Court overturned the decision. The state agency then appealed to the Minnesota Supreme
Court. On July 29th, the Court ruled in favor of the state trail.


Trail advocates across the country watched the case closely. Lawyers in trail land
disputes in every state could bring up this case as an example. For more than twenty
years, lawyers fighting for public trails have relied heavily on another case, also in
Minnesota. Dorian Grilley is the executive director of the Parks and Trails Council of
Minnesota. He says the Minnesota Supreme Court made the decision in 1983.


“In that case, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that it was legal for that easement to
be transferred to a public agency for use as a trail because in the early 1900’s or late
1800’s, ‘railway purposes’ really meant public transportation, and that a trail qualified as
public transportation.”


In its recent decision, the court upheld the idea that a public trail serves the same kind of
purpose as a railway, moving people from place to place.


Now that the court has ruled in favor of the state, Mike Sandberg will be forced to
abandon plans to build a driveway along the old railroad bed. His brother is not sure
whether he’ll build his retirement home there as he’d planned, since bicyclists and hikers
will have access to the trail cutting across his property. But trail users can look forward to
seeing another section of the trail completed and paved.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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Environmentalists Cheered by Dam Removals

60 dams are scheduled for removal this year across the country. 40 of them are currently located in the eight Great Lakes states. Environmentalists say the removal of these dams will improve water quality and help restore fisheries. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:

Transcript

60 dams are scheduled for removal this year across the country, 40 of them
are currently located in the eight Great Lakes states. Environmentalists
say the removal of these dams will improve water quality and help restore fisheries.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:


A survey by the environmental group American Rivers shows
that more than 145 dams have been removed nationwide since 1999. Serena
McClain is a conservation associate for American Rivers. She says there are
two good reasons why these dams are coming down. First, there’s a growing
concern for the ecological health of rivers and streams. But there is also
an economic benefit to removing some dams.


“It’s an infrastructure that requires constant maintenance and improvement. And a lot of
these dams, too… they’ve outlived their purpose. When they were first built, a lot of them
powered old grist mills, but now they’re just sitting there, kind of rotting away.”


McClain says migratory species like salmon and trout are negatively impacted by dams,
and new evidence shows even fish that don’t travel as far benefit when the structures are
pulled down. About 65 percent of the dams scheduled for removal this year are located
in the eight Great Lakes states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.

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Gao: Companies’ Environmental Risks Underreported

Corporations are required to make environmental disclosure statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The statements are intended to inform investors about the risks associated with companies. But the government doesn’t really know if the businesses are actually complying. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Corporations are required to make environmental disclosure statements to the Securities
and Exchange Commission. The statements are intended to inform investors about the
risks associated with companies. But the government doesn’t really know if the
businesses are actually complying. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:


Publicly held companies are supposed to disclose environmental information to the
Securities and Exchange Commission. But what the companies are to report is unclear
and some choose to report very little.


The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, found the
SEC does not systematically track issues raised in its reviews of companies’ filings. So, it
doesn’t have the information needed to tell whether there’s a problem. The SEC and the
Environmental Protection Agency both gather information about companies’ impact on
the environment, but the GAO found the agencies only periodically share information
and then only when there’s an environment-related legal proceeding against a company.
The Securities and Exchange Commission declined to be interviewed for this story, but in
a letter responding to the GAO report, its director says the SEC is working on the issues
identified by the GAO study.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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