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On dirty public things
POLITICALGEOGRAPHYQUARTERLY,Vol. 5, No. 3, July 1986, 241-251
On dirty public things LINCOLNALLISON Department of Politics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
ABSTRACT.‘Dirty public things’ refers to projects which are public in the sense that they are intended to benefit an indefinite number of people, but which are ‘dirty’ in the sense that they are or would be of net clisbenefit to spatially defined groups of people, those who live close to them. Motorways, airports and power stations are typically important examples. Many existing policy-making structures do not perform well when making decisions about dirty public projects, partly because they confuse aggregative issues (those concerned with what should be built) with locational issues (those concerned with where things should be built). It is not possible to stipulate what would constitute a rational system of decision-making, even in an ideal world: some of the conflicts, both of principle and interest, which are raised by dirty public things are fundamental and irreconcilable and ii is not possible to detach aggregative from locational issues completely. It can be shown, nevertheless, that some forms of decision-making are irrational, and one of these is the British system of public inquiries in many of its applications.
‘Dirty public things’ can be described, in loose and common parlance, as economic projects which are good for the people as a whole, but bad for those who have to live next to them. The most obvious examples are such major investments as motorways, power stations and airports, but many of the same considerations extend to smaller things such as land-fills and car-parks. Decisions about such projects provide particularly complex and difficult (and interesting) problems for modem political systems. An unfortunate, if familiar, observation is that, whereas loose and common parlance is inadequate to the complexities of many political subjects, technical terms sometimes merely worsen the confusion. For example, projects of this kind are often called ‘dirty public goods’. But consider the economist’s conception of a ‘public good’. It is analytically true of public goods in the orthodox sense that one person’s consumption of them does not reduce the potential for anyone else to consume them. It is clear, as with many definitions in economics, that no real thing fits fully into this category: in practice anything can be crowded for somebody else and many apparently public goods have a positional element in Hirsch’s (1976) sense.’ There are limits to the capacities of roads, parks, and so on to satisfy everybody, and much narrower limits to their capacity to satisfy them to the same degree. But, if there are no real public goods in the economists’ sense, there are some things which get much closer to fitting the concept than others; ‘amenities’ in the most general sense, particularly objects of beauty, are closest of all. No firm line can be drawn between 0260-9827/86/03 0241-11 $03.00 0 1986 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd
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public goods and other goods. Moreover, the kind of major investments which pose the most interesting and complex political problems do not fit the conception particularly closely. Classically, for instance, there should be no price to pay for the consumption of a public good, but there are prices to be paid for using an airport or the product of a power station. It is contingent (and only of marginal interest to the problems posed in this paper) whether motorways are provided freely to users or not. Paradoxically, it is things which public investments are often alleged to destroy or impair, such as tranquillity, clean air and the beauty of the countryside, which more closely resemble the idea of a public good. Even so, the subject-matter is public entities, if not in this sense, then in some other. It is not the ordinary sense which I take to be ‘publicly owned’; a power station or airport could be publicly or privately owned and raise the same issues, though it would be a strange political system which did not publicly regulate or control such investments. They are public in the sense that they allegedly benefit a public, an indefinite number of people within given political boundaries2 either by being available to the public or by being a necessary condition of economic growth which benefits a public. It must be emphasized that ‘public’ in this sense can mean only allegedly public, and that the allegation of benefit must be one of gross benefit; it does not take externalities into consideration. ‘Externalities’ or external diseconomies are normally defined as those costs, in the broadest sense, which arise out of acts of production and consumption which affect third parties not directly involved in those acts nor the exchanges arising out of them.3 The appearance of a pub or other licensed premises on the corner of my street can only expand my options as a potential customer; there is a sense, one expressed by Vilfredo Pareto and Brian Barry (see Barry, 1965: 176), in which the new pub must be to my gross advantage. But for a resident, the pub may have all kinds of disadvantages: door-slamming, overparking, nocturnal singing and pavement vomiting take place, which did not take place before. These are externalities because they are inflicted on people whether or not they are party to an exchange. Some externalities are foisted on classes of producers and some on classes of consumers, but the kind I am concerned with here are a complex bundle which affect people territorially, usually because they are residents of a particular area. It may be the act of consumption which generates the externalities, or that of production or merely the existence of the capital. In short, the terminological problems of the subject-matter are dealt with as follows. The subject is defined as dirty public projects (or investments). ‘Projects’ and ‘investments’ are used in order to minimize confusion with the overlapping economists’ concept of a public good, but also to focus on the investment decision: existing forms of production do not create political issues in the same way. ‘Public’ is used loosely to refer to investments which are alleged to be of benefit to an indefinite number of people within a society. ‘Dirty’ refers to territorially concentrated external d&economies; it is a relatively precise term, but complex, ‘because most public investments create at least one territorially concentrated benefit to counteract the costs: viz. opportunities for employment. Dirty public investments, then, are going to be treated as those capital projects which are alleged to be of gross benefit to the public, but which create significant external d&economies for the residents of the area in which they are sited. The typical dirty public investment is assumed to be of net benefit to the public within a set of political boundaries, but of net d&benefit to the residents of a smaller area within those boundaries.
Siting
dirty
public
things
Decisions about dirty public things are a central and complex problem of locational politics.
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Such decisions have an undeniable importance: landscapes are blighted or preserved; jobs are created or lost; economic growth occurs or is forestalled. Systems of decision-making, if they are to be rationalized and considered rational, must be judged by two standards. First, aggregative-do they over- or underprovide such investments, both in general and in particular categories? Second, locational-how do they rate on scales of ‘best-toworst’ siting? Of course, ultimately, self-appointed critics or assessors of systems of decision-making must themselves adopt a standard of judgement. This means formalizing a method of some precision based on value propositions (presumably utilitarian) which are to be applied in practice to unique and immensely complex circumstances. Few people could do this job and, arguably, nobody could do it at all except arbitrarily and controversially. But these strictures apply only to judgements based on models of a perfect or perfectly rational method of collective decision-making. When judging real systems of decisions it is often possible to criticize them by reference to standards which are not arbitrary nor even controversial in the ordinary sense of those words, because those systems breach the absolute minimum standards of rationality which can be applied to decisions. Nobody, starting from scratch, could coherently recommend some of the decision-making systems which actually exist. The British system of public inquiries is fundamentally flawed-this is a reference primarily to the ‘Big Public Inquiry’, the use of inquiries to make decisions on major investment projects. The system of public inquiries is used in many administrative contexts, particularly in connection with environmental planning, and there are several thousand held every year if public local inquiries are included. The fundamental objections apply much more fully to the ‘Big’ ones, the subjects of which often bear strong similarities to the ‘dirty public investment’ model and much less to many others, including the commonest category -those dealing with an appeal against refusal of planning permission. Many criticisms have been levelled against the system of public inquiries: they are said to be excessively long and cumbersome procedures, to be unnecessarily legalistic in style, to over-represent orthodox and established interests against others, to have insufficient status within the general machinery of making policy, and to allow judgements based on only a narrow range of factors. But these are contingent criticisms; they could all be met within the essential form of the public inquiry. There is a much more theoretical objection, that the whole form of the public inquiry is inappropriate to projects which are big or dirty (and most big ones are dirty). Public inquiries examine particular projects. Though they may consider alternatives, such as several detailed routes in a motorway inquiry, the essential question before a public inquiry is of the form (P or not-P?). A proposal is put forward, the case for it is heard and so are objections to it. Alternatives are considered only in so far as objectors make critical points in reference to them. This means that much of any inquiry consists of detailed examination of objections to the project. Now there is a problem here of project identity: what is the difference between a modification of a project and an alternative to it? To take a current example: the issues would change very little if the proposed nuclear power station at Sizewell were to be contracted or expanded, or moved a mile away. Most of the objections would apply toany nuclear power station, and it has often been observed that the inquiry has become a forum, perhaps the only official public forum, for the consideration of energy policy in general. In 1973 the public inquiry on the M40 and M42, held in Kenilworth, was then the longest inquiry ever to be held (see Allison and Slevin, 1973a, b). (It has been massively exceeded now!) A few weeks before the inquiry opened the Department of the Environment had issued a circular saying that it was always open to objectors at a public inquiry on a
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government project such as a motorway to put arguments against the project as such, and not merely against the particular siting proposal. Those who attended the inquiry, however, were given a piece of paper which said, in its first paragraph, that it was the Secretary of State’s policy to build a motorway in the ‘Oxford-Birmingham corridor’, and that the inquiry could question only the detailed implementation of the policy and not the policy itself. The confusion continued throughout the inquiry. Some objectors, representing either estates or local societies, operated a dual strategy of argument. Their first wave of attack, so to speak, consisted of detailed objections to a precise route; but then, just in case they could be taken into account, they offered some general objections to the building of any motorway in the ‘corridor’ between Oxford and Birmingham. When these arguments were put, the inspector, Major-General Edge, smiled indulgently and listened with what appeared to be intense concentration. But his gold pen did not move; he did not take notes. Because of the problem of project identity, ambiguity is integral to the public inquiry system, rather than a contingent problem. Objections naturally vary in breadth. In the case of a stretch of motorway, the basic impetus of opposition can vary from objections to the effect on a specific archaeological site, to attempts at preserving the tranquillity of a particular village and protecting well-defined areas of high landscape value, at one end of the continuum, to reservations about private transport and the underlying assumptions of transport policy or certain general tendencies of modern living at the other. Any attempt to restrict artificially the area of debate must result in the exclusion of many important issues and much relevant information, the failure of the institution to function as an expression of public opinion and of individual rights, and, possibly, to protests against it of the kind associated with John Tyme’s anti-motorway campaigns in the 1970s. Conversely, an unlimited brief for objectors opens debate to a boundless series of objections which must eventually defy gove~~t policy. It is not surprising that since inspectors have generally taken a more liberal view of what can be considered, inquiries have increased steadily in length. Public inquiries are thus a vehicle for the discussion of objections to a project whose definition fluctuates in breadth and precision depending on the objections discussed. They still have their original function as an institution for the defence of people’s property rights (in the broadest sense, not merely owners’ rights), but they are also justified as institutions through which people participate in the making of policy. It is highly illogical that such an institution should be used for decisions about dirty public investments. What is discovered by public inquiries is, to put it brutally, that people don’t like bad things and that, if they have the resources, they are prepared to argue that bad things should not be foisted upon them. A public inquiry on a dirty public project is a bit like ~e~~Zyholding a balloon debate to decide who should be thrown out of a balloon to lessen its weight, choosing the candidates at random and allowing them to appoint counsel to examine every possible objection to the idea of each proposed individual being debasketed. A revealing tale is told by Gregory (197 1: 89- 13 2) of the power station that never was at Holme Pierrepoint near Nottingham. The events took place between 1960 and 1963 against a background of rapidly rising energy demand in which it was accepted by virtually everybody that generating capacity in the Midlands would have to be increased. On the mass of economic evidence, there was a very strong case for Holme Pierrepoint, which was readily accessible to both labour and raw materials. There were environmental objections, based largely on the effect on the prospective Nottingham green belt, and naturally, there was virulent opposition to the project from the inhabitants of the area, which was suburban in character. The inspector chose to meet this opposition head on by holding a meeting of residents, who naturally took him to be a government spokesman and expressed themselves
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in a very forthright manner. This impressed the inspector because his report said, in essence: ‘There are very strong economic arguments for the project and some planning considerations which count against it, but which are not sufficient to outweigh the economic advantages. However, there is enormous and articulate local opposition and perhaps it would be best if the project were abandoned.’ One aspect of the location of dirty public investment is the asymmetry between the distribution of intensities of the pros and cons. The opposition to the ‘dirty’ aspect is localized and intense, well defined by residence in a particular area. The beneficiaries may be extremely diffuse, as in the case of a motorway or an airport, or non-existent (at least in the sense that they are not yet born or do not know who they are) as in the case of new towns. The opposition to Lewis Silkin and the planners of Stevenage in 1946 was as virulent as any opposition to a dirty investment, but it was faced by a gove~~t which, at least at that stage, had a very clear idea of its own mandate and policies and cared little for local opposition.* The general point is that proponents will not (and sometimes cannot) express themselves so well as opponents. It is a point from which the late John Mackintosh inferred an almost Burkian conclusion: that the core of policy must be left in the hands of elected representatives and not devolved onto participatory or quasi-judicial bodies (see Mackintosh, 1977: 191-202). The work of the projected Holme Pierrepoint power station is now done by the Ratcliffeupon-Soar station, eight miles south of Nottingham, overlooking a broad swathe of the Trent valley and the Ml motorway. Ratcliffe-upon-Soar was built rather than Holme Pierrepoint for two reasons: less opposition was attracted in an area which was sparsely populated, and the urgency, because of rising energy demand, was so great that further delay was expected to disrupt power supplies. Nobody denied that Ratcliff~u~n-ear was a less effkzhzt site and, arguabty, its environm~~ consequences were worse than those of Holme Pierrepoint. This was the view of the (then) Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and it is undeniable that Ratcliffe-upon-Soar visually affects a much wider area than Holme Pierrepoint and is seen by far more people. Some conditions to be met by improved decisions Two conditions
must be met if the system is to be improved:
1. There must be a more firm distinction between what is established policy, the proper subject-matter of manifestoes, cabinet commitments and (in principle, at least) electoral choices and what is open to technical debate. Decisions in the former category are commonly called ‘stage one’ policy decisions and the line is alit to draw, but normally the great bulk of purely Eocotios4 decisions and at least some other aspects of investment decisions will be in the latter category. 2. Technical debate must be instituted in such a way that it can consider the alternatives available. Its fundamental structure must not be P or not-P, therefore, but P or Q or R. . . , Both these points are well illustrated by the research which has been done on the extension of Edinburgh airport between 1968 and 1972 (see Benyon, 1978: 439-456; Mutch, 1977: 43-58). A contentious inquiry was held in which the overwhelming arguments (and the Reporter’s recommendations) appear to have been against the extension. But, for reasons connected with Scotland’s image and the perceived urgency of the need for development, the inquiry was not only ignored but predestined to be ignored (a point which Benyon in particular emphasizes). The inquiry was a waste of time and money,
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and rather than acting as any kind of safety-valve or satisfactory expression of the participants’ views and interests, it made them feel cheated and angry. The second problem is equally well illustrated by the same example. It had long been argued by many people that Central Scotland ought not to have two separate airports, but one serving both its major cities. The prima facie case, glancing at the geography of the central valley, would seem to be very strong indeed and made stronger by the positions of the two existing airports, both of which are unusually close to city centres. Their abolition in favour of a single airport would therefore achieve two further purposes: it would release valuable land for other developments and it would reduce the level of danger and nuisance to residents. It is impossible to establish, merely by taking such a broad view, that it would have been a better decision to build a. Central Scotland Airport; there were several arguments against the idea, not least the cost of writing off the existing airports, but also the difficulties and costs of the extra commuting required and possible effects on the countryside. But it seems to have been established that there was a case to consider, and that the Turnhouse Inquiry, as it is usually known, did not consider it. That (PvQvR) must be better than Pv - P has been commonly perceived in British public administration. The ad hoc Roskill Commission on the Third London Airport in 1967 considered 96 alternative sites and narrowed them to four which it subjected to detailed consideration. A similar form of institution was allowed for in the 1968 Town and Country Planning Act: the Planning Inquiry Commission. This was to be a two-stage process, a general analysis of policy and ‘need’ being followed by a site-specific inquiry. The 1971 Town and Country Planning Act enabled Planning Inquiry Commissions to spend money on research. But no further exercises in the style of Roskill have been conducted, and Planning Inquiry Commissions have remained a complete dead letter. Roskill became disreputable partly because it passively accepted the ‘need’ assumptions given it by the government, and more so because of the elaborately formal calculations of cost and benefit by which it tried to select the ‘correct’ site.s But it is clear that the Roskill method still has its supporters among the relevant professions, even though some would support the general framework without the particular methods (see Barker, 1984: 620-621). Planning Inquiry Commissions have apparently been abandoned by the Department of the Environment because of a ‘natural justice’ objection which means, in political terms, that as the second stage of the inquiry would be held by a member or members of a body which had itself recommended the site in question, then nobody would take the second stage seriously (Barker, 1984: 621). This would devalue the whole exercise since the second stage would be the natural forum for political action and the focus for public attention. However, all of these objections, to both kinds of institution, seem to be contingent rather than essential. As a result, according to Barker (1984: 623), ‘there are almost no institutions in the British political system for looking into the future in a modern, systematic and open way’. He stresses that things are worse, if anything, since the abolition of a number of quangos which could at least consider a broad range of options.
Two kinds
of question
Dirty public projects raise a number of interesting questions for the academic student of society. These appear to divide quite naturally into two kinds of question. First, the kind which are of interest to political scientists: How in reality do political systems distribute dirty public things? What similarities and differences are there between the patterns of distribution in different political systems? Second, the kind of questions of interest to planning
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theoristsand administrative
reformers: How can the distributional decisions be made (more) rationally, at least in principle? What kind of decision-making structure might best reproduce more rational decisions ? How might existing structures be modified towards structures capable of more rational consideration of the issues? I do not offer myself as well qualified to answer either kind of question but, given the advantages of thorough empirical and comparative work in answering the first kind, I must be marginally better placed to deal with the second. I suggest some answers to the political scientists’ questions, though only in the form of hypotheses relevant to a world of ceteris par&s which do not seem to be actually contradicted by political experience: 1. The more accountable decision-makers are the more difficult it is to place dirty projects. 2. The more participatory the system (measured in terms of the number of participants, the amount of their action and the promptness of their political responses), the more difficult it is to place dirty projects. 3. The more decentralized a system, the more difficult it is to place projects. These hypotheses of difficulty imply others about location: 4. Location tends to be determined by internal variations in accountability, participation and decentralization. This means that: (a) There is a tendency to move dirty projects to border regions and areas of low density. (b) Areas with fewer constitutional powers will prove easier locations than those with more. A fairly direct example of this is provided by the English motorway system. The biggest gap in that system is London’s ‘motorway box’, which was abandoned after the Labour victory in the Greater London Council elections of 1973.6 The GLC was the only local authority in the country with direct control of motorways and trunk roads. (c) The case of placing a dirty investment will vary with the social composition of different areas. Some of the factors which determine participation and accountability (education, contacts, subjective competence) are the factors which define class in any realistic sense. It is easier to build a power station on Merseyside than in Surrey, though of course many other factors distinguish the two places, not least the priority to be given to sources of manual employment. A much more complex example is the comparison between Britain and continental Europe. Britain has been more effective in protecting the countryside from certain kinds of incursion (particularly industrial zones and American-style commercial ‘strips’), but much of continental Europe has avoided the blight and destruction inflicted on Britain’s inner cities. Though I would be the first to admit that these comparisons raise some very complex factors indeed, it is surely of direct relevance that the social status of residents in the British countryside is relatively higher than the territorial equivalents in most of Europe, and that the reverse is true of inner cities. 5. A political system in which participation and accountability were high and centralization low might find it difficult to make dirty investments at all. One might almost expect Switzerland to buy its electricity from abroad rather than have nuclear power stations, but nationalism is a strong countervailing factor. 6. Where dirty investments are supported by strong commercial and financial pressures, but have to contend with strong local pressure, one can expect loopholes, informal arrangements and de facto violations of planning procedures to occur. One can have some sympathy with the Italian businessman, reared in a political system in which
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certain planning procedures are notoriously ignored, who, when faced with a British public inquiry, said to Graham Eyre, QC (who was, the Italian did not seem to appreciate, representing his opponents): ‘I don’t understand. In Italy, we want a refinery, dve have a refinery’.7 But in Britain, we have our own curiosities: Luton Airport has become a sort of Third London Airport without being an airport at all, in the sense that it is not owned by the British Airports Authority. It is worth emphasizing that all of these hypotheses are simple abstractions help to interpret a very complex world. Rational
which just might
location?
Earlier I stressed that a ‘more rational’ system should be able to consider all relevant alternatives and should be able to make a ~stin~on between gove~ent policies, established ~litically, and the technical, expert and a~inistrative decisions made within those policies. This last distinction is not the same as a distinction between decisions about the aggregate level of investment and those about the siting of a particular investment, but the two distinctions are parallel and overlapping and likely to be very similar in the main cases. It would be surprising if an elected government did not come to its task with established principles and objectives in the matters of transport and energy, but it would be equally odd if it had preconceived ideas about (say) the exact mileage of new motorways and their precise routes. This distinction between the general strategies of policy and its precise implementation is, of course, a very familiar one in all fields of policy. Something like it supposedly marks the boundary between the work of politicians and that of administrators and a parallel kind of distinction has been the basis in English planning since 1968 of the distinction between general planning policy (contained in ‘structure’ plans) and more detailed forms of policy contained in local plans and specific investment and development control decisions. One of the advantages of such distinctions is generally thought to be that they protect the making of broad policy from the kind of self-interested, defensive political participation which so bogged down the making of development plans in the 1947-1968 period and has since inordinately lengthened many public inquiries. Even though attempts to make this distinction clearly in the siting of dirty public investments have been abandoned for purely contingent reasons, it does not follow that there are not good reasons for such abandonment. After all, if it is true of any site that, say, a nuclear power station ought not to be built on it because, taking into account its consequent external diseconomies, its disadvantages outweigh its benefits, then it naighl be true of every site. Therefore a decision in principle to build a certain kind of thing, irrespective of whether a beneficial site can be found, cannot itself be a rational decision and must quite artificially and irrationally limit any discussion of a site. The most common form in British politics and administration of trying to separate the two parts of a decision is an intellectually unacceptable rhetorical trick. The rationale begins with statements about future ‘needs’, but any political theorist coming upon these statements is bound to ask ‘needs for what and why?‘. In no case are we talking about the survival of society. ‘Needs’ normally refers to projections of future demand, but that demand is merely a consequence of a price structure which is directly or indirectly controlled by government and its decisions about which environmental costs are to be borne in exchange for which growth gains. Society could get by with fewer motorways and less electricity if it chose to; to introduce ‘need’ into the debate is to make consideration of the issues circular in form and arbitrary in implantation. This is most clear in the case of moto~ays. The questions which a rational consideration of dirty public goods should be asking are of
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the form: ‘Is there at least one site at which project P would be of overall net public advantage and, if there is more than one, which is the most advantageous?’ It would be irrational not to consider these questions together. Thus neither making a clear distinction between the stages of decision-making nor failing to do so seems to solve the problem. The best compromise would seem to be something along the lines of the Roskill Commission, but with wider terms of reference and a more open collective mind. Having said that, a familiar paradox of rationality must be considered. How rational is it to be rational? To the individual this question constantly recurs in the form of how much consideration one should give to decisions, how much worry is worth the effort. In the collective siting of dirty public investments, the logical possibility must always be accepted that the costs of the decision process are costs significant to the scale of the decision: Barker reports that the ‘enormous cost’ of the Third London Airport Inquiry gave the ‘sharpest pain’ to Michael Heseltine in his time at the Department of the Environment (Barker, 1984: 624). And it must be remembered that the indirectly incurred social costs of delay might well be much greater even than the administrative costs of an inquiry.
Alternative
institutions
No institutional formula is being offered here for dealing with the problem of dirty public investments. There is always something to be said for good research, for Environmental Impact Assessments of the sort which the American Federal Government has required for any project under its control since 1969. Since 1976 the European Economic Community has been moving towards making similar assessments compulsory for its members, though fairness of competition appears to be one of its major objectives (see I.e-Las, 1982: 67-68). Similar kinds of consideration are dealt with by Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Board as well as by New Zealand’s planning tribunals and the Environmental Courts of some Australian states. But such methods of consideration do not offer anything extra in the way of evaluation of projects. Ultilitarianism is the de fucto basis of evaluations which are made in Britain and, to a lesser extent, in many other countries, though the United States’ court-oriented system of decision-making gives much more credence to rights-based fundamental evaluations. Nor does it appear that there is much alternative to a utilitarian basis, even though it seems far more plausible when applied loosely and superficially than it does when calculated with systematic precision. The considerations of a lucid and experienced inspector seem to offer a more mature form of judgement than the spurious sophistication of Roskill’s economists. Within that basis of evaluation the best kind of institution for making decisions is probably one which allows decisions of principle and those of location to be considered broadly together, which has clear terms of reference and is allowed to consider all relevant alternatives. Barker has more than one argument for suggesting that there would be a lot to be gained by such an institution reporting to parliament rather than, in effect, to senior administrators. I think his case is stronger on the benefits to parliament (‘bringing it back to politics’) than it is on the quality of major planning decisions. Committees of MPs with territorial power bases have an obvious weakness in that respect. There is something to be said for the more direct vote on certain decisions of principle: the Swiss referendum or the Californian ballot.8 In such votes the rival experts are forced to put their case as lucidly as they can to the maximum number of people; most of those who vote can base their vote on a detached, Rousseauesque, notion of the long-term public good and a clear set of principles for policy can be set by the most legitimate of sources. But it would be extremely difficult to stipulate clearly which issues should go to the people, and those whose health is affected or
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whose outlook is blighted by a dirty public project, or the prospect of one, might well take the view that a lot less of the spirit of Rousseauesque citizenship and a bit more of the local veto might be an improvement. So, these considerations have not proved very conclusive. Nor are they particularly timely: the 1960s in Britain, the era of utilitarian growth and rationalization, were probably the period when the problem of dirty public investments was at its height. But the problem is one which is going to remain for modern governments, and the opposition to dirty public projects may be more intense than ever. These remarks have been interested to establish that, quite apart from the immense complexity of detail raised by particular sites and proposals, there is a particularly thorny theoretical problem at the heart of the debate about dirty public investments. In passing, it is worth noting that one implication of this conclusion is agreement with the point of view of such political geographers as Andrew Kirby, that ‘spatial tensions constitute an addition to “normal” political cleavages’ (Kirby, 1981: 237-244).9 Some important political conflicts arise merely out of the distribution of population and not out of the social, economic, cultural and ideological differences which political science associates with regional and local differences and with which it is more familiar. Notes Hirsch (1976) generally refers to ‘collective goods’ rather than ‘publicgoods’; see pp. 27-55 in particular. 2. This definition of ‘public’ is based on that found in Barry (1965: 190-192). Barry in turn attributes care of the idea to Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1832: 233-234). In defining ‘the 1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. 8. 9.
public’ Barry emphasizes Bentham’s (1931) phrase ‘an indefinite number of non-assignable individuals’. For an interesting discussion of the merits of development control as opposed to civil law in dealing with the problems of externalities, see Pearce (198 1). Similar issues are raised by Sorensen and Day (1981). The author is grateful to Joyce Lenton for an account of Lewis Silkin’s dealings with the residents of Old Stevenage. Miss Lenton was formerly publicity officer for Stevenage Development Corporation, and in that capacity the author of A Stevenage Chronicle (Stevenage Development Corporation). For the author’s account of cost-benefit analysis and the redutio ad absurdurn of utilitarianism, see Allison (1975: 74-87). An account of the 1969 Act and its principles can be found on pp. 63-73. See Thomson (1977: 59-70). For an angry condemnation of the politicization of decision-making represented by this particular decision, see the statement by Alan Tate, MC, RfBA, FRTPI, fL.A, in Barker (1984: 629). Statement by the Chairman in Barker (1984: 630). This is in contrast (but not, hopefully, contradiction) to the views expressed in Allison (1984: 158-163). Jn Kirby (1982) the spatial aspects of a number of problems bordering on the subject of this essay are explored, indicating, for instance, the drawing of maps showing the distribution of certain kinds of externalities.
References ALLISON,L. (1975). EnvironmentalPkznning, pp. 63-73, 74-87. London: Allen and Unwin. AL=, L. (1984). Right Principles: A Consewative Philosophy of Politics, pp. 158-163. London: Basil Blackwell. ALLISON, L. AND SLEW, C. (1973a). New motorways and environmental issues. MunicipalEngineering 15(37).
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(1973b). Motorway inquiry. New Sociaty25(469), 30 August. (1984). Planning inquiries: a role for Parliament. journal of& Ro~~~~~~ ofArts 137(5337), August, 620-621,623,624,629,630. BARRY,B. (1965). Political Argument, pp. 176, 190-192. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. BENTHAM, J. (1931). The Theory oflegishtion, p. 240. London. BENYON, J. (1978). Some political implications of airport location: the case of Edinburgh Airport. I%!& Administration M(4), 439-456. GREGORY,R. (1971). The price ofAmenity, pp. 89-132. London: Macmillan. HUSCH, F. (1976). SocialLimits to Growth, pp. 27-55. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. KNY, A. (1981). Planning inquiries as a research issue. In Political Sfudiesfrom Spatial Perspectives (A. D. Burnett and P. J. Taylor, eds) pp. 237-244. Chichester: Wiley. KIRBY, A. (1982). The Politics of Location: An Introduction. London: Methuen. LE-LAS,W. (1982). Environmental impact assessment. fiier&ge Outlook 2(3), May/June, 67-68. &LEON, i.. AND SLIWN, C. BARKER,A.
LEWIS, SIR G. CORNEWALL(1832).
Remarks on the USE asd A&se of Some Political Terms, pp. 233-234.
London: Fellowes. Reissued in 1898 by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. MA~~T~H, J. P. (1977). The politician’s view: the perspective of a Member of the House of Commons in the UK. In Public Participation in Pkzmaing(W. R. D. 5ewell and J. T. Coppock, eds) pp. 191-202. C&Chester: Wiley. MUXH, E. S. (1977). The expansion of Tumhouse, Edinburgh Airport. in Public Parlicipation in Phning (W. R. D. Newelland J. T. Coppock, eds) pp. 43-58. PEARCE,B. J. (1981). Property rights vs. development control: a preliminary evaluation of alternative planning policy instruments, Town Planning Review 52(l). SORENSEN, A. D. AND DAY, R. A. (1981). Libertarian planning. Town Planning Review 52(4). THOMSON, J. M. (1977). The London motorway plan. In Public Participation b Planning (W. R. D. Sewell and J. T. Coppock, eds) pp. 59-70. Chichester: Wiley.
On dirty public things LINCOLNALLISON Department of Politics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
ABSTRACT.‘Dirty public things’ refers to projects which are public in the sense that they are intended to benefit an indefinite number of people, but which are ‘dirty’ in the sense that they are or would be of net clisbenefit to spatially defined groups of people, those who live close to them. Motorways, airports and power stations are typically important examples. Many existing policy-making structures do not perform well when making decisions about dirty public projects, partly because they confuse aggregative issues (those concerned with what should be built) with locational issues (those concerned with where things should be built). It is not possible to stipulate what would constitute a rational system of decision-making, even in an ideal world: some of the conflicts, both of principle and interest, which are raised by dirty public things are fundamental and irreconcilable and ii is not possible to detach aggregative from locational issues completely. It can be shown, nevertheless, that some forms of decision-making are irrational, and one of these is the British system of public inquiries in many of its applications.
‘Dirty public things’ can be described, in loose and common parlance, as economic projects which are good for the people as a whole, but bad for those who have to live next to them. The most obvious examples are such major investments as motorways, power stations and airports, but many of the same considerations extend to smaller things such as land-fills and car-parks. Decisions about such projects provide particularly complex and difficult (and interesting) problems for modem political systems. An unfortunate, if familiar, observation is that, whereas loose and common parlance is inadequate to the complexities of many political subjects, technical terms sometimes merely worsen the confusion. For example, projects of this kind are often called ‘dirty public goods’. But consider the economist’s conception of a ‘public good’. It is analytically true of public goods in the orthodox sense that one person’s consumption of them does not reduce the potential for anyone else to consume them. It is clear, as with many definitions in economics, that no real thing fits fully into this category: in practice anything can be crowded for somebody else and many apparently public goods have a positional element in Hirsch’s (1976) sense.’ There are limits to the capacities of roads, parks, and so on to satisfy everybody, and much narrower limits to their capacity to satisfy them to the same degree. But, if there are no real public goods in the economists’ sense, there are some things which get much closer to fitting the concept than others; ‘amenities’ in the most general sense, particularly objects of beauty, are closest of all. No firm line can be drawn between 0260-9827/86/03 0241-11 $03.00 0 1986 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd
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public goods and other goods. Moreover, the kind of major investments which pose the most interesting and complex political problems do not fit the conception particularly closely. Classically, for instance, there should be no price to pay for the consumption of a public good, but there are prices to be paid for using an airport or the product of a power station. It is contingent (and only of marginal interest to the problems posed in this paper) whether motorways are provided freely to users or not. Paradoxically, it is things which public investments are often alleged to destroy or impair, such as tranquillity, clean air and the beauty of the countryside, which more closely resemble the idea of a public good. Even so, the subject-matter is public entities, if not in this sense, then in some other. It is not the ordinary sense which I take to be ‘publicly owned’; a power station or airport could be publicly or privately owned and raise the same issues, though it would be a strange political system which did not publicly regulate or control such investments. They are public in the sense that they allegedly benefit a public, an indefinite number of people within given political boundaries2 either by being available to the public or by being a necessary condition of economic growth which benefits a public. It must be emphasized that ‘public’ in this sense can mean only allegedly public, and that the allegation of benefit must be one of gross benefit; it does not take externalities into consideration. ‘Externalities’ or external diseconomies are normally defined as those costs, in the broadest sense, which arise out of acts of production and consumption which affect third parties not directly involved in those acts nor the exchanges arising out of them.3 The appearance of a pub or other licensed premises on the corner of my street can only expand my options as a potential customer; there is a sense, one expressed by Vilfredo Pareto and Brian Barry (see Barry, 1965: 176), in which the new pub must be to my gross advantage. But for a resident, the pub may have all kinds of disadvantages: door-slamming, overparking, nocturnal singing and pavement vomiting take place, which did not take place before. These are externalities because they are inflicted on people whether or not they are party to an exchange. Some externalities are foisted on classes of producers and some on classes of consumers, but the kind I am concerned with here are a complex bundle which affect people territorially, usually because they are residents of a particular area. It may be the act of consumption which generates the externalities, or that of production or merely the existence of the capital. In short, the terminological problems of the subject-matter are dealt with as follows. The subject is defined as dirty public projects (or investments). ‘Projects’ and ‘investments’ are used in order to minimize confusion with the overlapping economists’ concept of a public good, but also to focus on the investment decision: existing forms of production do not create political issues in the same way. ‘Public’ is used loosely to refer to investments which are alleged to be of benefit to an indefinite number of people within a society. ‘Dirty’ refers to territorially concentrated external d&economies; it is a relatively precise term, but complex, ‘because most public investments create at least one territorially concentrated benefit to counteract the costs: viz. opportunities for employment. Dirty public investments, then, are going to be treated as those capital projects which are alleged to be of gross benefit to the public, but which create significant external d&economies for the residents of the area in which they are sited. The typical dirty public investment is assumed to be of net benefit to the public within a set of political boundaries, but of net d&benefit to the residents of a smaller area within those boundaries.
Siting
dirty
public
things
Decisions about dirty public things are a central and complex problem of locational politics.
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Such decisions have an undeniable importance: landscapes are blighted or preserved; jobs are created or lost; economic growth occurs or is forestalled. Systems of decision-making, if they are to be rationalized and considered rational, must be judged by two standards. First, aggregative-do they over- or underprovide such investments, both in general and in particular categories? Second, locational-how do they rate on scales of ‘best-toworst’ siting? Of course, ultimately, self-appointed critics or assessors of systems of decision-making must themselves adopt a standard of judgement. This means formalizing a method of some precision based on value propositions (presumably utilitarian) which are to be applied in practice to unique and immensely complex circumstances. Few people could do this job and, arguably, nobody could do it at all except arbitrarily and controversially. But these strictures apply only to judgements based on models of a perfect or perfectly rational method of collective decision-making. When judging real systems of decisions it is often possible to criticize them by reference to standards which are not arbitrary nor even controversial in the ordinary sense of those words, because those systems breach the absolute minimum standards of rationality which can be applied to decisions. Nobody, starting from scratch, could coherently recommend some of the decision-making systems which actually exist. The British system of public inquiries is fundamentally flawed-this is a reference primarily to the ‘Big Public Inquiry’, the use of inquiries to make decisions on major investment projects. The system of public inquiries is used in many administrative contexts, particularly in connection with environmental planning, and there are several thousand held every year if public local inquiries are included. The fundamental objections apply much more fully to the ‘Big’ ones, the subjects of which often bear strong similarities to the ‘dirty public investment’ model and much less to many others, including the commonest category -those dealing with an appeal against refusal of planning permission. Many criticisms have been levelled against the system of public inquiries: they are said to be excessively long and cumbersome procedures, to be unnecessarily legalistic in style, to over-represent orthodox and established interests against others, to have insufficient status within the general machinery of making policy, and to allow judgements based on only a narrow range of factors. But these are contingent criticisms; they could all be met within the essential form of the public inquiry. There is a much more theoretical objection, that the whole form of the public inquiry is inappropriate to projects which are big or dirty (and most big ones are dirty). Public inquiries examine particular projects. Though they may consider alternatives, such as several detailed routes in a motorway inquiry, the essential question before a public inquiry is of the form (P or not-P?). A proposal is put forward, the case for it is heard and so are objections to it. Alternatives are considered only in so far as objectors make critical points in reference to them. This means that much of any inquiry consists of detailed examination of objections to the project. Now there is a problem here of project identity: what is the difference between a modification of a project and an alternative to it? To take a current example: the issues would change very little if the proposed nuclear power station at Sizewell were to be contracted or expanded, or moved a mile away. Most of the objections would apply toany nuclear power station, and it has often been observed that the inquiry has become a forum, perhaps the only official public forum, for the consideration of energy policy in general. In 1973 the public inquiry on the M40 and M42, held in Kenilworth, was then the longest inquiry ever to be held (see Allison and Slevin, 1973a, b). (It has been massively exceeded now!) A few weeks before the inquiry opened the Department of the Environment had issued a circular saying that it was always open to objectors at a public inquiry on a
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government project such as a motorway to put arguments against the project as such, and not merely against the particular siting proposal. Those who attended the inquiry, however, were given a piece of paper which said, in its first paragraph, that it was the Secretary of State’s policy to build a motorway in the ‘Oxford-Birmingham corridor’, and that the inquiry could question only the detailed implementation of the policy and not the policy itself. The confusion continued throughout the inquiry. Some objectors, representing either estates or local societies, operated a dual strategy of argument. Their first wave of attack, so to speak, consisted of detailed objections to a precise route; but then, just in case they could be taken into account, they offered some general objections to the building of any motorway in the ‘corridor’ between Oxford and Birmingham. When these arguments were put, the inspector, Major-General Edge, smiled indulgently and listened with what appeared to be intense concentration. But his gold pen did not move; he did not take notes. Because of the problem of project identity, ambiguity is integral to the public inquiry system, rather than a contingent problem. Objections naturally vary in breadth. In the case of a stretch of motorway, the basic impetus of opposition can vary from objections to the effect on a specific archaeological site, to attempts at preserving the tranquillity of a particular village and protecting well-defined areas of high landscape value, at one end of the continuum, to reservations about private transport and the underlying assumptions of transport policy or certain general tendencies of modern living at the other. Any attempt to restrict artificially the area of debate must result in the exclusion of many important issues and much relevant information, the failure of the institution to function as an expression of public opinion and of individual rights, and, possibly, to protests against it of the kind associated with John Tyme’s anti-motorway campaigns in the 1970s. Conversely, an unlimited brief for objectors opens debate to a boundless series of objections which must eventually defy gove~~t policy. It is not surprising that since inspectors have generally taken a more liberal view of what can be considered, inquiries have increased steadily in length. Public inquiries are thus a vehicle for the discussion of objections to a project whose definition fluctuates in breadth and precision depending on the objections discussed. They still have their original function as an institution for the defence of people’s property rights (in the broadest sense, not merely owners’ rights), but they are also justified as institutions through which people participate in the making of policy. It is highly illogical that such an institution should be used for decisions about dirty public investments. What is discovered by public inquiries is, to put it brutally, that people don’t like bad things and that, if they have the resources, they are prepared to argue that bad things should not be foisted upon them. A public inquiry on a dirty public project is a bit like ~e~~Zyholding a balloon debate to decide who should be thrown out of a balloon to lessen its weight, choosing the candidates at random and allowing them to appoint counsel to examine every possible objection to the idea of each proposed individual being debasketed. A revealing tale is told by Gregory (197 1: 89- 13 2) of the power station that never was at Holme Pierrepoint near Nottingham. The events took place between 1960 and 1963 against a background of rapidly rising energy demand in which it was accepted by virtually everybody that generating capacity in the Midlands would have to be increased. On the mass of economic evidence, there was a very strong case for Holme Pierrepoint, which was readily accessible to both labour and raw materials. There were environmental objections, based largely on the effect on the prospective Nottingham green belt, and naturally, there was virulent opposition to the project from the inhabitants of the area, which was suburban in character. The inspector chose to meet this opposition head on by holding a meeting of residents, who naturally took him to be a government spokesman and expressed themselves
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in a very forthright manner. This impressed the inspector because his report said, in essence: ‘There are very strong economic arguments for the project and some planning considerations which count against it, but which are not sufficient to outweigh the economic advantages. However, there is enormous and articulate local opposition and perhaps it would be best if the project were abandoned.’ One aspect of the location of dirty public investment is the asymmetry between the distribution of intensities of the pros and cons. The opposition to the ‘dirty’ aspect is localized and intense, well defined by residence in a particular area. The beneficiaries may be extremely diffuse, as in the case of a motorway or an airport, or non-existent (at least in the sense that they are not yet born or do not know who they are) as in the case of new towns. The opposition to Lewis Silkin and the planners of Stevenage in 1946 was as virulent as any opposition to a dirty investment, but it was faced by a gove~~t which, at least at that stage, had a very clear idea of its own mandate and policies and cared little for local opposition.* The general point is that proponents will not (and sometimes cannot) express themselves so well as opponents. It is a point from which the late John Mackintosh inferred an almost Burkian conclusion: that the core of policy must be left in the hands of elected representatives and not devolved onto participatory or quasi-judicial bodies (see Mackintosh, 1977: 191-202). The work of the projected Holme Pierrepoint power station is now done by the Ratcliffeupon-Soar station, eight miles south of Nottingham, overlooking a broad swathe of the Trent valley and the Ml motorway. Ratcliffe-upon-Soar was built rather than Holme Pierrepoint for two reasons: less opposition was attracted in an area which was sparsely populated, and the urgency, because of rising energy demand, was so great that further delay was expected to disrupt power supplies. Nobody denied that Ratcliff~u~n-ear was a less effkzhzt site and, arguabty, its environm~~ consequences were worse than those of Holme Pierrepoint. This was the view of the (then) Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and it is undeniable that Ratcliffe-upon-Soar visually affects a much wider area than Holme Pierrepoint and is seen by far more people. Some conditions to be met by improved decisions Two conditions
must be met if the system is to be improved:
1. There must be a more firm distinction between what is established policy, the proper subject-matter of manifestoes, cabinet commitments and (in principle, at least) electoral choices and what is open to technical debate. Decisions in the former category are commonly called ‘stage one’ policy decisions and the line is alit to draw, but normally the great bulk of purely Eocotios4 decisions and at least some other aspects of investment decisions will be in the latter category. 2. Technical debate must be instituted in such a way that it can consider the alternatives available. Its fundamental structure must not be P or not-P, therefore, but P or Q or R. . . , Both these points are well illustrated by the research which has been done on the extension of Edinburgh airport between 1968 and 1972 (see Benyon, 1978: 439-456; Mutch, 1977: 43-58). A contentious inquiry was held in which the overwhelming arguments (and the Reporter’s recommendations) appear to have been against the extension. But, for reasons connected with Scotland’s image and the perceived urgency of the need for development, the inquiry was not only ignored but predestined to be ignored (a point which Benyon in particular emphasizes). The inquiry was a waste of time and money,
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and rather than acting as any kind of safety-valve or satisfactory expression of the participants’ views and interests, it made them feel cheated and angry. The second problem is equally well illustrated by the same example. It had long been argued by many people that Central Scotland ought not to have two separate airports, but one serving both its major cities. The prima facie case, glancing at the geography of the central valley, would seem to be very strong indeed and made stronger by the positions of the two existing airports, both of which are unusually close to city centres. Their abolition in favour of a single airport would therefore achieve two further purposes: it would release valuable land for other developments and it would reduce the level of danger and nuisance to residents. It is impossible to establish, merely by taking such a broad view, that it would have been a better decision to build a. Central Scotland Airport; there were several arguments against the idea, not least the cost of writing off the existing airports, but also the difficulties and costs of the extra commuting required and possible effects on the countryside. But it seems to have been established that there was a case to consider, and that the Turnhouse Inquiry, as it is usually known, did not consider it. That (PvQvR) must be better than Pv - P has been commonly perceived in British public administration. The ad hoc Roskill Commission on the Third London Airport in 1967 considered 96 alternative sites and narrowed them to four which it subjected to detailed consideration. A similar form of institution was allowed for in the 1968 Town and Country Planning Act: the Planning Inquiry Commission. This was to be a two-stage process, a general analysis of policy and ‘need’ being followed by a site-specific inquiry. The 1971 Town and Country Planning Act enabled Planning Inquiry Commissions to spend money on research. But no further exercises in the style of Roskill have been conducted, and Planning Inquiry Commissions have remained a complete dead letter. Roskill became disreputable partly because it passively accepted the ‘need’ assumptions given it by the government, and more so because of the elaborately formal calculations of cost and benefit by which it tried to select the ‘correct’ site.s But it is clear that the Roskill method still has its supporters among the relevant professions, even though some would support the general framework without the particular methods (see Barker, 1984: 620-621). Planning Inquiry Commissions have apparently been abandoned by the Department of the Environment because of a ‘natural justice’ objection which means, in political terms, that as the second stage of the inquiry would be held by a member or members of a body which had itself recommended the site in question, then nobody would take the second stage seriously (Barker, 1984: 621). This would devalue the whole exercise since the second stage would be the natural forum for political action and the focus for public attention. However, all of these objections, to both kinds of institution, seem to be contingent rather than essential. As a result, according to Barker (1984: 623), ‘there are almost no institutions in the British political system for looking into the future in a modern, systematic and open way’. He stresses that things are worse, if anything, since the abolition of a number of quangos which could at least consider a broad range of options.
Two kinds
of question
Dirty public projects raise a number of interesting questions for the academic student of society. These appear to divide quite naturally into two kinds of question. First, the kind which are of interest to political scientists: How in reality do political systems distribute dirty public things? What similarities and differences are there between the patterns of distribution in different political systems? Second, the kind of questions of interest to planning
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theoristsand administrative
reformers: How can the distributional decisions be made (more) rationally, at least in principle? What kind of decision-making structure might best reproduce more rational decisions ? How might existing structures be modified towards structures capable of more rational consideration of the issues? I do not offer myself as well qualified to answer either kind of question but, given the advantages of thorough empirical and comparative work in answering the first kind, I must be marginally better placed to deal with the second. I suggest some answers to the political scientists’ questions, though only in the form of hypotheses relevant to a world of ceteris par&s which do not seem to be actually contradicted by political experience: 1. The more accountable decision-makers are the more difficult it is to place dirty projects. 2. The more participatory the system (measured in terms of the number of participants, the amount of their action and the promptness of their political responses), the more difficult it is to place dirty projects. 3. The more decentralized a system, the more difficult it is to place projects. These hypotheses of difficulty imply others about location: 4. Location tends to be determined by internal variations in accountability, participation and decentralization. This means that: (a) There is a tendency to move dirty projects to border regions and areas of low density. (b) Areas with fewer constitutional powers will prove easier locations than those with more. A fairly direct example of this is provided by the English motorway system. The biggest gap in that system is London’s ‘motorway box’, which was abandoned after the Labour victory in the Greater London Council elections of 1973.6 The GLC was the only local authority in the country with direct control of motorways and trunk roads. (c) The case of placing a dirty investment will vary with the social composition of different areas. Some of the factors which determine participation and accountability (education, contacts, subjective competence) are the factors which define class in any realistic sense. It is easier to build a power station on Merseyside than in Surrey, though of course many other factors distinguish the two places, not least the priority to be given to sources of manual employment. A much more complex example is the comparison between Britain and continental Europe. Britain has been more effective in protecting the countryside from certain kinds of incursion (particularly industrial zones and American-style commercial ‘strips’), but much of continental Europe has avoided the blight and destruction inflicted on Britain’s inner cities. Though I would be the first to admit that these comparisons raise some very complex factors indeed, it is surely of direct relevance that the social status of residents in the British countryside is relatively higher than the territorial equivalents in most of Europe, and that the reverse is true of inner cities. 5. A political system in which participation and accountability were high and centralization low might find it difficult to make dirty investments at all. One might almost expect Switzerland to buy its electricity from abroad rather than have nuclear power stations, but nationalism is a strong countervailing factor. 6. Where dirty investments are supported by strong commercial and financial pressures, but have to contend with strong local pressure, one can expect loopholes, informal arrangements and de facto violations of planning procedures to occur. One can have some sympathy with the Italian businessman, reared in a political system in which
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certain planning procedures are notoriously ignored, who, when faced with a British public inquiry, said to Graham Eyre, QC (who was, the Italian did not seem to appreciate, representing his opponents): ‘I don’t understand. In Italy, we want a refinery, dve have a refinery’.7 But in Britain, we have our own curiosities: Luton Airport has become a sort of Third London Airport without being an airport at all, in the sense that it is not owned by the British Airports Authority. It is worth emphasizing that all of these hypotheses are simple abstractions help to interpret a very complex world. Rational
which just might
location?
Earlier I stressed that a ‘more rational’ system should be able to consider all relevant alternatives and should be able to make a ~stin~on between gove~ent policies, established ~litically, and the technical, expert and a~inistrative decisions made within those policies. This last distinction is not the same as a distinction between decisions about the aggregate level of investment and those about the siting of a particular investment, but the two distinctions are parallel and overlapping and likely to be very similar in the main cases. It would be surprising if an elected government did not come to its task with established principles and objectives in the matters of transport and energy, but it would be equally odd if it had preconceived ideas about (say) the exact mileage of new motorways and their precise routes. This distinction between the general strategies of policy and its precise implementation is, of course, a very familiar one in all fields of policy. Something like it supposedly marks the boundary between the work of politicians and that of administrators and a parallel kind of distinction has been the basis in English planning since 1968 of the distinction between general planning policy (contained in ‘structure’ plans) and more detailed forms of policy contained in local plans and specific investment and development control decisions. One of the advantages of such distinctions is generally thought to be that they protect the making of broad policy from the kind of self-interested, defensive political participation which so bogged down the making of development plans in the 1947-1968 period and has since inordinately lengthened many public inquiries. Even though attempts to make this distinction clearly in the siting of dirty public investments have been abandoned for purely contingent reasons, it does not follow that there are not good reasons for such abandonment. After all, if it is true of any site that, say, a nuclear power station ought not to be built on it because, taking into account its consequent external diseconomies, its disadvantages outweigh its benefits, then it naighl be true of every site. Therefore a decision in principle to build a certain kind of thing, irrespective of whether a beneficial site can be found, cannot itself be a rational decision and must quite artificially and irrationally limit any discussion of a site. The most common form in British politics and administration of trying to separate the two parts of a decision is an intellectually unacceptable rhetorical trick. The rationale begins with statements about future ‘needs’, but any political theorist coming upon these statements is bound to ask ‘needs for what and why?‘. In no case are we talking about the survival of society. ‘Needs’ normally refers to projections of future demand, but that demand is merely a consequence of a price structure which is directly or indirectly controlled by government and its decisions about which environmental costs are to be borne in exchange for which growth gains. Society could get by with fewer motorways and less electricity if it chose to; to introduce ‘need’ into the debate is to make consideration of the issues circular in form and arbitrary in implantation. This is most clear in the case of moto~ays. The questions which a rational consideration of dirty public goods should be asking are of
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the form: ‘Is there at least one site at which project P would be of overall net public advantage and, if there is more than one, which is the most advantageous?’ It would be irrational not to consider these questions together. Thus neither making a clear distinction between the stages of decision-making nor failing to do so seems to solve the problem. The best compromise would seem to be something along the lines of the Roskill Commission, but with wider terms of reference and a more open collective mind. Having said that, a familiar paradox of rationality must be considered. How rational is it to be rational? To the individual this question constantly recurs in the form of how much consideration one should give to decisions, how much worry is worth the effort. In the collective siting of dirty public investments, the logical possibility must always be accepted that the costs of the decision process are costs significant to the scale of the decision: Barker reports that the ‘enormous cost’ of the Third London Airport Inquiry gave the ‘sharpest pain’ to Michael Heseltine in his time at the Department of the Environment (Barker, 1984: 624). And it must be remembered that the indirectly incurred social costs of delay might well be much greater even than the administrative costs of an inquiry.
Alternative
institutions
No institutional formula is being offered here for dealing with the problem of dirty public investments. There is always something to be said for good research, for Environmental Impact Assessments of the sort which the American Federal Government has required for any project under its control since 1969. Since 1976 the European Economic Community has been moving towards making similar assessments compulsory for its members, though fairness of competition appears to be one of its major objectives (see I.e-Las, 1982: 67-68). Similar kinds of consideration are dealt with by Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Board as well as by New Zealand’s planning tribunals and the Environmental Courts of some Australian states. But such methods of consideration do not offer anything extra in the way of evaluation of projects. Ultilitarianism is the de fucto basis of evaluations which are made in Britain and, to a lesser extent, in many other countries, though the United States’ court-oriented system of decision-making gives much more credence to rights-based fundamental evaluations. Nor does it appear that there is much alternative to a utilitarian basis, even though it seems far more plausible when applied loosely and superficially than it does when calculated with systematic precision. The considerations of a lucid and experienced inspector seem to offer a more mature form of judgement than the spurious sophistication of Roskill’s economists. Within that basis of evaluation the best kind of institution for making decisions is probably one which allows decisions of principle and those of location to be considered broadly together, which has clear terms of reference and is allowed to consider all relevant alternatives. Barker has more than one argument for suggesting that there would be a lot to be gained by such an institution reporting to parliament rather than, in effect, to senior administrators. I think his case is stronger on the benefits to parliament (‘bringing it back to politics’) than it is on the quality of major planning decisions. Committees of MPs with territorial power bases have an obvious weakness in that respect. There is something to be said for the more direct vote on certain decisions of principle: the Swiss referendum or the Californian ballot.8 In such votes the rival experts are forced to put their case as lucidly as they can to the maximum number of people; most of those who vote can base their vote on a detached, Rousseauesque, notion of the long-term public good and a clear set of principles for policy can be set by the most legitimate of sources. But it would be extremely difficult to stipulate clearly which issues should go to the people, and those whose health is affected or
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whose outlook is blighted by a dirty public project, or the prospect of one, might well take the view that a lot less of the spirit of Rousseauesque citizenship and a bit more of the local veto might be an improvement. So, these considerations have not proved very conclusive. Nor are they particularly timely: the 1960s in Britain, the era of utilitarian growth and rationalization, were probably the period when the problem of dirty public investments was at its height. But the problem is one which is going to remain for modern governments, and the opposition to dirty public projects may be more intense than ever. These remarks have been interested to establish that, quite apart from the immense complexity of detail raised by particular sites and proposals, there is a particularly thorny theoretical problem at the heart of the debate about dirty public investments. In passing, it is worth noting that one implication of this conclusion is agreement with the point of view of such political geographers as Andrew Kirby, that ‘spatial tensions constitute an addition to “normal” political cleavages’ (Kirby, 1981: 237-244).9 Some important political conflicts arise merely out of the distribution of population and not out of the social, economic, cultural and ideological differences which political science associates with regional and local differences and with which it is more familiar. Notes Hirsch (1976) generally refers to ‘collective goods’ rather than ‘publicgoods’; see pp. 27-55 in particular. 2. This definition of ‘public’ is based on that found in Barry (1965: 190-192). Barry in turn attributes care of the idea to Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1832: 233-234). In defining ‘the 1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. 8. 9.
public’ Barry emphasizes Bentham’s (1931) phrase ‘an indefinite number of non-assignable individuals’. For an interesting discussion of the merits of development control as opposed to civil law in dealing with the problems of externalities, see Pearce (198 1). Similar issues are raised by Sorensen and Day (1981). The author is grateful to Joyce Lenton for an account of Lewis Silkin’s dealings with the residents of Old Stevenage. Miss Lenton was formerly publicity officer for Stevenage Development Corporation, and in that capacity the author of A Stevenage Chronicle (Stevenage Development Corporation). For the author’s account of cost-benefit analysis and the redutio ad absurdurn of utilitarianism, see Allison (1975: 74-87). An account of the 1969 Act and its principles can be found on pp. 63-73. See Thomson (1977: 59-70). For an angry condemnation of the politicization of decision-making represented by this particular decision, see the statement by Alan Tate, MC, RfBA, FRTPI, fL.A, in Barker (1984: 629). Statement by the Chairman in Barker (1984: 630). This is in contrast (but not, hopefully, contradiction) to the views expressed in Allison (1984: 158-163). Jn Kirby (1982) the spatial aspects of a number of problems bordering on the subject of this essay are explored, indicating, for instance, the drawing of maps showing the distribution of certain kinds of externalities.
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(1973b). Motorway inquiry. New Sociaty25(469), 30 August. (1984). Planning inquiries: a role for Parliament. journal of& Ro~~~~~~ ofArts 137(5337), August, 620-621,623,624,629,630. BARRY,B. (1965). Political Argument, pp. 176, 190-192. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. BENTHAM, J. (1931). The Theory oflegishtion, p. 240. London. BENYON, J. (1978). Some political implications of airport location: the case of Edinburgh Airport. I%!& Administration M(4), 439-456. GREGORY,R. (1971). The price ofAmenity, pp. 89-132. London: Macmillan. HUSCH, F. (1976). SocialLimits to Growth, pp. 27-55. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. KNY, A. (1981). Planning inquiries as a research issue. In Political Sfudiesfrom Spatial Perspectives (A. D. Burnett and P. J. Taylor, eds) pp. 237-244. Chichester: Wiley. KIRBY, A. (1982). The Politics of Location: An Introduction. London: Methuen. LE-LAS,W. (1982). Environmental impact assessment. fiier&ge Outlook 2(3), May/June, 67-68. &LEON, i.. AND SLIWN, C. BARKER,A.
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