Built Environment

What we CAN control.

Owl Writer (2)

Guide to the Page

This page is about big picture land use decisions with significant impacts. First projecting from present land cover to 2050 land cover, we then examine warehousing and housing trends. Coming soon will be special sections on housing, wildfire, and biodiversity. Our choices--and our voices--matter.

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Built Environment Dashboard

From sewer lines and fiberoptics to street lights, bridges, storm drains, and freeways, we pass over many elements of the built environment without even noticing them. As global warming accelerates, the challenge to create sustainable, resilient infrastructure that harmonizes with surrounding landscapes is both urgent and possible.

Learning about our built environment is worth the wait! Wait for the data to download to reveal how Southern California's land use has changed through time.

Built Environment Icon

Infrastructural Investigations!

You are in charge of figuring out how infrastructure can be better, stronger, and healthier. The challenge is not just to design for humans but for multiple species. Click on the categories below to find out more.

Light

Light pollution harms us humans, is costly, and is confusing to animals. What are the main sources of night light in your area? Do lights point up or down? How can we darken nighttime environments? Check out www.darksky.org for ideas!

Visit DarkSky.Org

Noise

The World Health Organization has specific definitions for noise pollution, but we know when sounds begin to hurt! Where does noise in your neighborhood or city come from? Different animals have varying sensitivity to sounds. How can we make urban environments quieter?

Learn More

Runoff

It's time to let the water trickle back down to earth instead of treating it as waste. Our built environment can make the difference. Think about how you can decrease runoff or water waste at your home, school, neighborhood, or city!

Material

Concrete is useful but super carbon and energy intensive. Investigate new and old building materials that can absorb carbon, create cooling, allow water to percolate, and provide structural strength! Remember to pay attention to the three P's: who is pitching the idea, who profits, and what's the process.

Heat

Heat is a study in inequality. The amount of asphalt, rooftops, and pavement all increase heat. While trees provide shade and cooling, the lack of trees combined with the above elements creates the "urban heat island effect." Brainstorm some cooling opportunities in your neighborhood!

Waste

Think of the difference between you and a tree. We humans create waste--a lot of it. How can we use fewer resources while still having fun, enjoying ourselves, eating good food, and working? Spend one day thinking about waste on your own or with friends, and tell your local city councilperson or principal about your ideas.

Deconstruct

Did you know that you can remove a dam? You can daylight a creek that's long been buried in a storm drain tunnel? You can un-pave a road or remove concrete from a driveway? When we deconstruct things, we also deconstruct the thought process that created them. Be careful not to make waste in a quest to deconstruct. Adaptively reuse or repurpose! 

Reconstruct

Imagine the world you want to see. How can we reconstruct our built environment to support that vision? To benefit multiple species and the earth as well as humans? Imagine solutions all around you, starting at home. Think of pathways and challenges for making change even more broadly.

Special Focus: Make Your City More Like a Sponge

Sponge City Infographic
How to Sponge Infographic
Spongey So Cal Infographic
Ingredients for a small-scale permeability project

Special Focus on Warehousing

Warehousing is one of the the most significant environmental--and environmental justice--issues in Southern California. Warehousing is transforming more land more quickly than any other form of land use in Southern California for select and marginal economic benefit.

With the false promise of good jobs, warehouses have cemented poverty through poor quality employment, have contributed to significant biodiversity loss, and have produced record congestion as well as pollution: light, noise, and air, causing impacts to mostly people of color in already impacted communities. Most recent warehouse growth has happened in the Inland Empire, while most warehouse ownership is in other areas--in particular Orange County. This means that most warehouse profits are leaving the region.

All of this has happened with NO regional plan. The results have spiraled out of control. We currently have a 17 year backlog of warehouses that will supply the rest of the country with goods. We won't be able to fill those warehouses until 2045 with rates of projected global imports, and relying on an increasingly volatile supply chain compromised by extreme weather, political relationships, and security issues.

We do not have to live this way. We can demand change. Elect local officials who share priorities for healthy and prosperous communities. Elect local officials who will do what's right for the region by taking the numbers below and the voices of impacted community members seriously.

We need to get to work reshoring the economy and creating inclusive community processes that envision the type of land uses that interweave biodiversity and water quality with human and economic wellbeing.

The rampant growth of warehousing is a classic example of overshoot: we have exceeded the carrying capacity of Southern California for this particular land use.

Demand a regional plan to right size warehousing, logistics, and the movement of goods. Demand that elected officials hold logistics to the same standards as residents. Demand that frontline community members be engaged in planning and decision making from the local to state level.

Unchecked warehouse growth is a nail in the coffin for community members and the planet. And it is something we CAN control.

Demand action today.

RHNA Housing Scorecards

Every five years, California asks all cities and counties to conduct a Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) as part of their housing element. Cities and counties are then rated on their progress toward those goals. See how your area is doing. Interactive maps and scorecards from the good people at the Southern California News Group.