The Civics of a Green New Deal
Carmen Sirianni
A Green New Deal (GND) must not only begin to reduce carbon emissions dramatically and help transition our economy and infrastructure towards renewable energy and green jobs, but must also help us develop the civic capacities we will need for a decades-long process of transition to a more resilient society capable of weathering the shocks of climate change to local family, community, and business assets. Whatever the appropriate mix of market mechanisms, regulatory tools, and public investments we might choose, we will nonetheless need a broad set of strategies for engaging local communities, civic and professional associations, unions and multi-stakeholder partnerships in ways that are effective and that generate widespread trust and democratic legitimacy. The civic energy of today’s youth climate activists who favor a GND, as vital it is to jolting us forward, will have to be sustained in practical work that transforms communities, cities, and institutions for the next several generations in a way that builds trust with the many constituencies that are skeptical.
Let me provide two examples from the field of sustainable cities, and then turn to how public policy and public administration can foster a civic democracy of problem solving and resilience.
Civic Action for Sustainable Cities
Cities have been a focus for sustainability work for over three decades. Local civic groups have pressed on many fronts, including environmental justice. National civic, environmental, and professional associations have mobilized and sometimes helped broker the formation of new groups that include market actors, such as the U.S Green Building Council. But also key to the story of building civic capacity have been federal policy design and administration. Two examples come from transportation policy and watershed policy.
In 1991, Congress passed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), which included substantial investments for biking, pedestrian, and rails-to-trails improvements. Its design and implementation included several components that fostered public engagement. First, new grants spurred organizing by local and state bicycle and pedestrian associations, and in the case of the more militant bicycle associations, helped to shift their practice towards collaborative planning with city officials. The Association for Biking and Walking, reflecting these pragmatic shifts, emerged before the first grant cycle ran its course, and the League of American Bicyclists followed suit with collaborative work within the following decade, adding still another virtuous civic feedback effect. Local and state AARP chapters also eventually became involved in coalition building for “age-friendly streets,” as did other groups for “safe routes to school.”
Second, the Federal Highway Administration sponsored conferences in 1994 and 1996 with hundreds of stakeholder groups to showcase best practices to date, helping to further configure the emerging field, and the key policy group that had helped design ISTEA affiliated some 800 local groups. Amidst funding supports, burgeoning civic action, and federal agency convening, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) was established in 1995 to provide further professional support for sustainable transportation work among city engineers and planners, with strong norms for engaging the public.
Third, ISTEA mandated pubic participation, above and beyond NEPA, and required the development of a public participation plan and consideration of all reasonable alternative transportation investments in a corridor prior to selecting a project. This spurred further collaborative planning and significant attention to diverse and traditionally underserved communities.
Watershed policy has also helped to build civic capacity for over three decades. The Chesapeake Bay Program in 1983 and the National Estuary Program in 1987 have provided templates for collaborative governance, with representation from business and academic scientists, as well as from environmental groups. They have also provided grants for broad civic engagement in restoration, technical and organizing toolkits for volunteer estuary monitoring, and economic toolkits for calculating the value of ecosystem services to enable local taxpaying publics and elected officials to appreciate the potential payoffs of investing in protection and restoration.
EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds helped to convene key civic, administrative, and other stakeholders in states around the country to build a watershed movement, and then helped to fund civic intermediaries, such as the River Network and Restore America’s Estuaries, to provide training to hundreds of watershed associations and councils. Major coastal cities, facing the threat of sea level rise, as well as inland cities, have enhanced their capacities for planning, engagement, and resilience due to such federal policy design and administrative assistance. Much more will surely be needed.
Public Policy and Administration for Democracy
Scholars note that policy design and administrative practice can and should aim to foster democratic deliberation, collaborative governance, coproduction, relational trust building, and forms of “street science” that meld lay and professional knowledge. In the age of climate crisis, public administrators and planners will be torn between two poles: the temptation to revert to technocratic practices, since technical and scientific knowledge is so critical, and the invitation to partner with local publics, as well as civic and professional associations seeking workable forms of “democratic professionalism.”
The technocratic approach is a big loser all around. It will leave GND politically vulnerable to charges of top-down statism and will channel intense civic emotions of anger, fear, and even despair among climate activists, skeptics, and bystanders towards those who administer all the public systems that we will need to enable resilience that is equitable, effective, and democratically legitimate. Even if we get right the various technological, market, and public investment components of a GND in the coming decades, climate change will bring considerable disruptions to cherished places, valuable housing and business assets, and community health. In some cities, it may require significant retreat from the shore, in others it will challenge local citizens to welcome and integrate those displaced. Racial, immigrant, and class tensions will become interlaced with all these challenges.
Neither protest, public investment, market or technical innovation will ever suffice on their own or in combination, though all are essential. Policy and public administration need to design for civic innovation and community problem solving in many types of venues, especially place-based ones and where issues of neighborhood and metropolitan equity are at stake. And to design for democratic hope through shared public work.
Carmen Sirianni is the Morris Hillquit Professor of Labor and Social Thought, and Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Brandies University.