PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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(safe and clean) public transport. Poor minority households have rather limited housing
choices, however. The cheapest housing is typically located in inner-city neighborhoods.
Many job opportunities for low-skilled workers, by contrast, are in locations which are
not adequately served by public transport. The poor thus incur a “spatial mismatch”
between their low-income inner city residence and their best opportunities for
employment, namely low-paid service sector jobs in suburban office parks, edge cities
and malls that are only accessible by car. 43
The upshot is that even the poor in the US
tend to be individually mobile car owners.
Baeten’s account also ignores gender differences in mobility. In the end, Baeten,
whose key point is that “sustainable transport rhetoric does not address the deeply
conflicting character of transport planning,” is himself partially guilty of not more clearly
spelling out conflicts between environmental and social issues in transport. It seems
dishonest to end with environmental justice/racism arguments that show that the poor are
more affected by pollution. For obviously reasons, the poor also often lead less
environmentally conscious lives in the sense that environmentalism is a luxury they
cannot afford. Poor people drive older, more polluting cars, and they buy fewer ecofriendly
products. 44
Higher levels of environmental awareness typically correlate with
43 The “spatial mismatch” hypothesis is of course still a hotly debated topic in American academia and
beyond. For a historical perspective on the debate, see Kain (1968) and then Kain (1994). For some recent
contributions, see Ilanfeldt and Sjoquist (1998), Taylor and Ong (1995), and McLafferty and Preston
(1996) as well as Wyly (1996) and McLafferty and Preston (1992) for a gender perspective on spatial
mismatch.
44 This does not necessarily mean that poor people necessarily have a more negative overall impact on the
environment than middle class people, however. Given that higher-income households typically also have
higher levels of consumption, they still end up “polluting” more than lower-income households. Compare,
for example, the yearly CO 2 emissions of a poor family of four that owns a smoke-belching old Ford but
can barely afford to go on a few weekend trips with it with those of an environmentally conscious DINK
couple that owns a modern low-emission car, goes on eco-tourist trips to Costa Rica and Nepal and
occasionally flies off to London or Paris for weekend shopping trips. Frequent international long-distance
travel indeed remains a privilege of the better-off.