Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Matthew Sperry
Some problems exist for which there are no technical solutions. Garrett Hardin argues that one of these problems is the problem of overpopulation. He explains this by invoking the concept of a commons: a seemingly inexhaustible resource whose free use is tolerated by all members of a society without restriction. In Mr. Hardins viewpoint, even our natural resources are clearly nite, and thus unamenable to an unbounded growth in our societys population. In the area of suburban growth, land resources take on the characteristics of a commons, and similar problems occur, though in a allowing some of Hardins proposed solutions to be analyzed and improved upon. His legislative solutions, easily compromised by strong-willed citizens in a democracy, can be reformed into more educational (and easily-digested) policies. Mr. Hardin explains the idea of a commons by invoking a metaphor of a eld on which the animals of many farmers graze. He demonstrates that while each farmer may benet from adding animals to the herd, in the absence of some regular thinning of the populations, the animals will eventually overrun the eld and destroy its value unless the farmers are educated to avoid this future negative by accepting a small loss of present benets (that is, by articially limiting the population of their herd). Hardin also explains that our modern-day pollution problem is also caused by the tragedy of the commons: an individual or organization receives a net benet by polluting, due
to the high cost of purifying waste. However, this net benet eventually becomes a liability when the worlds combined pollution causes the commonsour natural resources: air, water, landto become unusable and unlivable. Hardin explains that when it comes to overpopulation, the use of our planet as a commons for human reproduction is indefensible. He notes that there is a sociopolitical aspect to this problem: The individuals or groups who prefer to reproduce more frequently become more common in society. Mr. Hardin suggests that these hyper-fecund individuals and groups would be unable to provide resources for their young and would almost paradoxically kill themselves off by reproducing too much. However, due to governments and societies, the task of caring for the young falls on all citizens, and thus those who prefer not to reproduce contribute to their own marginalization over time. In fact, those who restrain their breeding in recognition of the population problem will disappear by this same effect. The increasing suburbanization of California is a relatively obvious phenomenon. The massive sprawls across Northern and Southern California surround the capital cities of those regions and grow outwards daily. In this situation, it is easy to see how the rural and agricultural land of the state could be viewed as a commons. After all, there are 104,772,480 acres of land in the state. If each person in the state were to take an acre individually, this uniform and excessive use of land would only consume 35% of the states land resources. So its little wonder that the amount of land is considered to be near-innite. Since a large majority of the land is undeveloped, its easy for a prospective developer to see an unused ridge or eld and think of it as potential for a quiet suburban neighborhood. 2
The increase in the suburbs is not driven solely by the availability of land, but by the demand for it. Many individuals who are nancially stable want to become homeowners. The suburbs give these individuals several benets: a more reasonable price range outside the city, a greater land area on which to build the home, and a manufactured sense of security. Because city land is often at a premium due to decades of development and general lack of space, the cost of a parcel of land for residential use is often much less than the equivalent parcel in the city. For the same reason, its also possible to buy a larger amount of land in the suburbs. Research done in Sonoma County further suggests that suburban homeowners are clamoring for a rural lifestyle that they are often unable to realize even in the suburbs. [Crump, 2003] Finally, due to the historic association of crime and violence with large cities, many homeowners feel more comfortable living in a place distant from the city, populated by people who moved to the area for similar reasons. Furthermore, because unused land far from the city is inexpensive, and the demand for suburbs is high, developers have found the construction of suburbs to be very lucrative indeed. These factors combine with the perceived innite availability of land to create a large amount of suburban construction across the state. Unfortunately, this construction does not come without its drawbacks. The continued creation of suburban land has become problematic recently due to several factors. One of these factors is the destruction of rural and agricultural land. While the amount of available land is large, it is not enough to simply have land available. The effects of suburbanization reach beyond direct land use and affect agriculture through disruption of the economy. [Lopez et al., 1988] The technological advances made in agriculture have allowed us to avoid a dearth of farmland, but the economic 3
impact cannot be ignored. The effects of building on that land also have to be taken into account. By constructing houses on previously unused land, many disruptions to the ecosystem occur. The most obvious is the impact on wildlife. The delicate ecological balance between wildlife and the land it lives on is easily disrupted. Building a simple residential complex in the middle of a patch of open land can eradicate species from that area of the state very quickly. To make matters worse, the desire of residents to live in a safe neighborhood can feed into a mentality that is downright antagonistic towards predator wildlife such as coyotes. And while it may not appear to be in the collective interest to have coyotes, the depletion of that predator can have adverse effects on other wildlife populations, causing overpopulation and eventually starvation. [DeStefano and DeGraaf, 2003] Another problem arises from the infrastructure required to support suburbs. Embedding significant amounts of infrastructure under- and above-ground can decrease the availability of surrounding areas for uses like agriculture, and decreases the reusability of that land should it ever be in a position to be re-used. Furthermore, the increased commute length and resulting greater use of automobiles conspire to create more pollution in the surrounding environment and across the state in general. However, as the most simple and obvious detriment, suburbs simply take up space. The large amount of space available is nevertheless nite, and in fact a not insignicant amount of it is used for other purposes than housing: agriculture, park land, and utility generation. In Puerto Rico, the growth of the suburban areas corresponded to a 5% decrease in the amount of vegetative cover. Homeowners desires to live in a forested area contribute to deforestation. [Thomlinson and Rivera, 2000] However, with suburban expansion increasing at a rapid clip, the inevitable must occur and 4
the amount of land demanded will become greater than the amount available. Although we can rely somewhat on technology to help mitigate this problem, we must face the fact that no non-suburban land use can take place when there is no land to use. There are many possible solutions to this pressing problem. The rst is to simply let suburban development run its course. Eventually, some will argue, space limitations and a recognition of the benets of density will cause suburbs to go out of fashion. While there has been some evidence of this taking place recently, it is probably not prudent to assume that there will be a major sea change in an outlook which has pervaded the American psyche for the past two centuries. Clearly the absolute root problem is that of population growth. As the population of the state increases and ages, the demand for home ownership on suburban land will increase. One way to limit this growth is to proscribe excessive reproduction, or to encourage the conscientious to limit reproduction by levying taxes on the unnecessarily prolic breeders. However, it is probably excessive to assume that this is simply a population problem, and it would most likely be more effective to create incentives and zoning regulations to encourage urbanization and to destigmatize city living. It is essential to the continued availability of free space in the state for the undesirable impacts of urban habitation to be mitigated and reduced, as this is the only way that residents predisposed to suburbia can be enticed into engaging in a more efcient and environmentally friendly living situation. Hardins solution would be to outlaw the suburban rush and mandate an increase in urban living as population grows. I think that this sort of heavy-handed lawmaking can be avoided if education and incentive are combined to convince people that the better solution is really to decrease suburban expansion. It would also prevent the sort of negative consequences that would 5
arise from restricting citizens right to determination. Clearly some suburban living would take place, but given some type of population stability, it is not unreasonable to believe that expansion could be halted or at least considerably slowed. The problem of suburban expansion mirrors Hardins denition of the commons tragedy in many ways. A seemingly limitless resource is drawn upon for personal benet: the suburban family desires a rural lifestyle with the amenities of a city, and builds a large house in a lowdensity area to meet this need. But the collective impact of a large population causes negative consequences that are felt even by those who did not prot from the pillage of the commons. These impacts include the decimation of agricultural space as well as the disruption of ecosystems and the negative environmental effect. The way towards solving these issues may lie in greater application of law, but the likelihood of these laws being accepted is very slim unless they are prefaced with education and introduced without coercion.
References
[Crump, 2003] Crump, J. (2003). Finding a place in the country: Exurban and suburban development in sonoma county, california. Environment and Behavior, 35(2):187.
[DeStefano and DeGraaf, 2003] DeStefano, S. and DeGraaf, R. M. (2003). Exploring the ecology of suburban wildlife. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 1(2):95101.
[Lopez et al., 1988] Lopez, R. A., Adelaja, A. O., and Andrews, M. S. (1988). The effects of suburbanization on agriculture. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 70(2):346358. 6
[Thomlinson and Rivera, 2000] Thomlinson, J. R. and Rivera, L. Y. (2000). Suburban growth in luquillo, puerto rico: some consequences of development on natural and semi-natural systems. Landscape and Urban Planning, 49(1-2):15 23.