Fiction vs Fact: Social and Environmental Costs

Highway boosters habitually ignore any and all possible costs associated with construction of a billion-dollar, sixty-mile long ribbon of concrete. When pressed, they simply say that the highway will be built with someone else’s money. Federal money, that is; money taken out of other people’s pockets. In the first place, this is factually incorrect. Millions of dollars of state money have already been wasted on the Peoria to Macomb expressway, and millions more would have to be spent before federal construction money could be utilized. Even if all highway costs were to be paid with federal money, the thinking behind this “get ours now” philosophy is ethically suspect. Money sent to the federal treasury from citizens around the country should be spent on projects that are important to the country as a whole. There is no reason to expect that money must be returned to the states in any particular ratio to how much and where it was collected. Federal projects that are important to the entire country, such as Medicare, aid to education, environmental protection, and even funding for American soldiers in war zones are being financially starved. Federal debt and deficit spending are at mind-boggling all-time highs. The federal and state governments, by any reasonable standard, are far, far beyond bankruptcy. Illinois is internationally notorious for failing to adequately fund its state employees’ pension funds.Yet, highway boosters clamor for a billion dollars in tax money for a project that has little chance of benefiting anyone but the workers who build it. All of the important things that will go undone if Illinois 336 is built must be counted as costs. Highway boosters are well aware of this, but ignore it carefully.
          Highway supporters routinely “pooh-pooh” concerns about the social costs to individuals and families who will be uprooted if the highway is built. “They will be fully compensated,” say the boosters. The foolishness and unfairness of such a claim is easily seen: Someone who has commuted two or three hours each day for years so he can live (and retire) in the country is not “fully compensated” by being paid the market price of his home. A parent who searched for years for a rural residence for her children to grow up in is not “fully compensated” if she is displaced by a highway and must watch her children grow up in town. A person living in the same community as his parents and grand parents is not “fully compensated” by being given enough money to move to another community. Farmers who have worked years to put together a profitable farming operation are not “fully compensated” by being given money they cannot spend because there is no nearby farmland that can replace what they have lost. Highway supporters brush these objections aside. They claim that eminent domain takings compensate those whose properties are lost with benefits to the community they live in. Property that would be taken for Illinois 336 does not fall into that category, however, because property would be taken from those who would not share in its (supposed) benefits. The 336 case is actually worse than this, for the following reason: Studies have shown that most of what is known as “economic development” is actually economic relocation. The burghers of Macomb and Canton want others to pay financially and personally for a project that will inject economic stimulation into their towns by draining economic vitality from other communities. (The distinction between economic development and economic relocation is an important one, and is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this website.) One pro-highway commentator, in a newspaper editorial, described those whose homes would be wrecked if Illinois 336 is built (approximately one hundred twenty-five families) as likely to be “discomfited,” an understatement of dismaying callousness.
          Highway boosters’ demands for “economic development” can have only one real meaning: They want the populations of their communities to increase so that their businesses can have higher profits. Many reasonable people, however, when envisioning the “Bloomingtonization” of Macomb or Canton, see costs, not benefits. A person driving down Veterans’ Parkway in Bloomington sees mile after mile of gas stations, auto dealerships, and fast-food joints, with a backdrop of hundreds of acres of identical chipboard palaces occupying what was once some of the state’s finest farmland. Many current residents of Canton or Macomb don’t really want their communities to be like this. Students of urbanization know that rapidly growing communities have high per-capita costs (and taxes), because growth requires the construction of new streets, sewer and water systems, schools, and recreational facilities. Grocery stores, banks, and other necessary businesses grow larger and more impersonal, and move farther and farther away from city centers. What was once a five-minute drive to the grocery store now becomes a half-hour stop-and-go ordeal.. Locally owned businesses disappear and are replaced by national and international enterprises that suck money out of the local community and have the legal and financial resources to overpower local preferences in location, size, lighting, noise, etc. Adding injury to insult, local taxpayers are asked to pay corporate incentives (bribes) for the pleasure of having their communities “deconstructed” in this way. Many thoughtful people see this kind of “economic development” as a cost to the community, not a benefit.
          The environmental costs of large highway construction projects are obvious and undeniable. Mega-highway enthusiasts do the only thing possible: Ignore those costs; pretend that they simply don’t exist. In brief, sixty miles of four-lane, limited access highway construction will destroy thousands of acres of productive farmland. Hundreds of acres of forestlands and wooded creek beds and river bottom habitat  will disappear, in a part of the state that is nationally known for its scenic beauty and wildlife. Highway-related mortality of native animals will increase. Pollution and silting of waterways will increase, and water diversion devices along the highway will speed rainwater runoff, thus decreasing replenishment of aquifers. Once again injury is added to insult: State funds intended for environmental improvement are being raided (swept) for funds that would go to highway construction. One of many possible examples is the “sweeping” of  Illinois  Forestry Development Act funds. Money in this fund comes from a four percent tax levied on forest owners when they sell timber. By law, the money in this fund is supposed to used for forestry development activities: replanting, timber stand improvement, education, etc. Instead, the governor wants it to be used to fund environmentally destructive projects like the Peoria to Macomb expressway.                  
          If a Peoria-to Macomb four-lane were to function as its promoters hope, it would contribute to sprawl; suburban housing developments oozing outward from Peoria to the west, covering natural areas and farms with residences whose occupants will have to commute greater and greater distances to and from work and shopping areas. In an era when petroleum extraction is increasingly destructive, environmentally, and petroleum supplies are growing increasingly expensive and insecure, it is irresponsible to use tax money in a way that encourages the unnecessary and wasteful use of gasoline.  Arguments in favor of building the Peoria to Macomb freeway rest on a solid foundation of deliberate ignorance about direct social and environmental costs and indirect social and environmental costs caused by the waste of tax dollars needed for more important purposes. The “earmarked “ funding that would finance the Peoria to Macomb four-lane, if seen clearly, is a funding method that is intended to avoid careful scrutiny and thoughtful balancing of important competing needs. Every parent knows that  two very important questions children need to be taught to ask about how to spend money are “Do I really need this?” and “What else could I do with the money?” Unfortunately, Illinois 336 boosters seem reluctant to ask themselves these questions.

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Economy

Fiction vs Fact