Earthjustice's Healthy Cities, Healthy Wildlands campaign seeks, in large part, to redirect our litigation efforts to better address the mounting environmental problems stemming from growth and urban sprawl across a broad swath of California.

California's rapid growth over the last sixty years presaged the ongoing demographic transformation of the Western United States, and while population growth rates in states like Nevada and Arizona now exceed that of California, they cannot match the sheer magnitude of the growth experienced in California. From about 7 million in 1940, California's population has more than quadrupled to 34 million residents today. There is more to come: The U.S. Census Bureau projects a population of 49 million in 2025, and nearly 59 million in 2040.

More often than not, California's incredible growth has been accommodated through the low-density pattern of development known as sprawl. What has emerged is a peculiarly Californian landscape of decentralized cities surrounded by layer upon layer of suburb, each composed of tract homes and strip-malls strung out along a maze of congested boulevards and freeways. The costs of sprawl are measured in acres of lost habitat, ecosystems, and open space, or in vehicle miles driven between jobs in the city and homes in the suburb, or in parts per million, the concentrations of air pollutants threatening our health with every breath.

At first, sprawl was largely contained to the peripheries of California's major metropolitan areas -- the South Coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Bay Area between San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. As population growth continued unabated, these urban areas began to overrun their natural boundaries, and new focal points for sprawl began to appear. In Northern California, the leading edges of sprawl now spread east from the Bay Area into the Central Valley and Delta, and along highway corridors into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Central Valley cities such as Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno are now growing the most rapidly.

Urbanization in the form of sprawl is now a leading cause of imperilment for 66% of the 286 species in California listed under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), and threatens to complete the destruction of entire biological communities already pushed to the brink by past urban and agricultural conversion. These threatened communities include native grassland and vernal pools in the Central Valley, coastal scrub in Southern California, wetlands along the rim of the San Francisco Bay and Delta, and aquatic and riparian habitat throughout the state. The conversion of land for agriculture was once a primary culprit of habitat destruction; now, ironically, California loses thousands of acres of prime agricultural land every year to urban sprawl.

Sprawl also affects the quality of life of millions of Californians who live in the many urban and rural air districts that fail to meet federal standards for a variety of harmful air pollutants, including ozone and carbon monoxide. Sprawl development reinforces an already unhealthy reliance on automobiles, both for commuting to distant jobs and for obtaining even the most basic amenities. Emissions from private cars a leading cause of air pollution in most areas of the state.

The Oakland Office of Earthjustice has six active cases and several more cases in development addressing the causes and consequences of sprawl from a variety of legal angles. Two active cases target prime examples of residential and urban sprawl in the Bay Area. We seek to ensure that federal and state agencies enforce environmental laws to protect endangered species habitat, air and water quality, and implement smart growth principles. Another case finds Earthjustice intervening to defend a voter-approved slow-growth initiative in Alameda County, one of the most sprawl-prone regions of the Bay Area. We are also working to ensure that the US EPA and other regional agencies fulfill their responsibilities under the Clean Air Act to improve air quality and public transit service in the highly-polluted Bay Area, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Valley air districts.

For more background:

Fact Sheet on Ozone Pollution in the San Joaquin Valley

Fact Sheet on Particulate Matter (Soot)

Effects of Air Pollution on Health, Agriculture, and Forests

Sources:

Doyle, et al., National Wildlife Federation White Paper, "Paving Paradise: Sprawl's Impact on Wildlife and Wild Places in California," February 2001. Smart Growth

California Regional Office and/or Earthjustice internal documents:

2001 Office Plan (Deborah Reames, Sarah Lancaster, Joe Street, Stan Yung, Laura Hoehn, Bruce Nilles, Mike Sherwood)

Campaign Fact Sheet (10/3/00 Draft) (Joe Street, Heather Kaplan)

The California Regional Office Focus: Healthy Cities, Healthy Wildlands: San Francisco to the Sierra (Internal Memo: Stan Yung, Joe Street, Deborah Reames)