GEORGE A. GONZALEZ - fieldi

CONCLUSION 105quality became manifest: the automobile. As explained in chapter 4, theautomobile became the dominant form of transportation in urban Americain large part because real estate interests (i.e., large land holders and developers)viewed it as a relatively low cost way to bring utility to land throughoutmetropolitan areas. While the automobile brought definite economicbenefits to key members of local growth coalitions throughout the UnitedStates, the mass usage of the automobile also brought acute air pollution formany localities.It was in Los Angeles, among major cites, where land developers on a generalbasis first integrated the automobile into their development projects. Asa result, by the 1920s, Los Angeles residents were leading the nation in thepurchase and use of the automobile. This, combined with its rather uniquetopography and meteorology, led the Los Angeles basin to be the first area inthe United States to experience severe air pollution from the automobile.In chapter 5, I pointed out that it was those economic interests that benefittedfrom economic growth in Los Angeles that took the most direct stepsto comprehensively deal with the air pollution plaguing the region beginningin the 1940s. A key part of this work took place through the Los AngelesTimes Citizens Smog Advisory Committee, the Air Pollution Foundation,and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Feminine members of the LosAngeles upper class also played a prominent role in air pollution abatementduring this period. They did so through the organization known as SOS(Stamp Out Smog). Like Chicago at the turn of the century, economic elitesin Los Angeles sought to manage the air pollution in their area through thedeployment of technology. This included air pollution from the automobile.Unlike the Chicago efforts at air pollution abatement, however—whichfailed to produce substantive results—some success was achieved in the LosAngeles effort to reduce air pollution. This is especially because automotivepollution control technology was both effective in reducing pollution and relativelyinexpensive. Moreover, this expense could in significant part bepassed on to the consumer. Additionally, with technological solutions seeminglyviable approaches to the air pollution situation in Los Angeles, theapparent effectiveness of those regulatory policies forwarding the developmentof technologies to address air pollution could be publicized.Outside of the economic elite and state autonomy/issue networks models,other approaches have been developed to explain why U.S. clean air policiesrely upon technology to reduce air pollution. These different approachescan be identified as “policy learning” (Sabatier 1987; 1999), neo-Marxist(Barrow 1993, chap. 2; Aronowitz and Bratsis 2002), and ecological modernizationdiscourse (Weale 1992; Litfin 1994; Hajer 1995; Bernstein 2001).To one degree or another, they all point to the political activity ofmodern environmental groups to explain the content of air pollution abatementpolicies. In the case of the policy learning approach, public policies