The Un-Politics of Air-Pollution. A Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities

Abstract

Preface TODAY ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION has become one of the nation's chief worries. Unfortunately, although pollution itself has been with us for many years, the worrying has begun only recently. This book attempts to discover some of the reasons why the concern was so late in developing, why many cities and towns in the United States failed to make a political issue of their air pollution problems. Air pollution, of course, is not the only urban problem that has been a victim of political neglect. Poverty and racial discrimination, for example, as well as pollution, have been present in American cities for some time but provoked little in the way of political action. There appear to be many subjects of great moment in contemporary American politics which had the status of in the past. Some observers, in fact, have contended that neglect of this kind is a pervasive feature of American political life. The issues that we ignore sometimes seem to be more important than the ones that receive attention. The decisions that we fail to make often seem to be more critical for the life of the nation than the ones that we do make. Most empirical political research, like the political system, has overlooked these non-issues and non-decisions, and the oversight is understandable. Where there are no political issues or decisions, there are no political events to investigate---or so it would seem. The analysis of non-decisions and non-issues seems to require that the analyst provide an explanation for things that do not happen, and some political scientists have argued that there is simply no reasoned and reliable way to construct such explanations. The present study attempts to find a way to do so. Many people and institutions have helped to make this attempt possible, and others have done what they could to keep it from becoming a failure. For his advice and assistance I am especially grateful to J. David Greenstone, who offered his guidance from the very beginning of the enterprise to its completion. Duncan MacRae and David Easton reviewed the entire manuscript, and their comments were most helpful. Some bits of advice offered by Peter Rossi while the project was still in its formative stage later proved to be invaluable, and it was Peter Rossi and Robert Crain who made it possible for me to collect the necessary data. Without their generosity, and the generosity of the National Science Foundation, 1 would never have been able to undertake this project. Robert Crain's role in data collection was far more important than my own, and 1 dare not consider the results had things been the other way round. I am also grateful to James Vanecko and others at the National Opinion Research Center who worked on the study. A research fellowship from The Brookings Institution made it possible for me to give full-time attention to the manuscript for a year, during which Gilbert Steiner provided both scholarly advice and administrative assistance. To my wife, Alene, goes the credit for typing the first draft and for being more patient than I had any right to expect.