Locally unwanted land use

In land-use planning, a locally unwanted land use (LULU) is a land use that creates externality costs on those living within close proximity. These costs include potential health hazards, poor aesthetics, or reduction in home values. Such facilities with such hazards need to be created for the greater benefits that they offer society. In land-use planning, a locally unwanted land use (LULU) is a land use that creates externality costs on those living within close proximity. These costs include potential health hazards, poor aesthetics, or reduction in home values. Such facilities with such hazards need to be created for the greater benefits that they offer society. LULUs can include power plants, dumps (landfills), prisons, roads, factories, hospitals and many other developments. Planning seeks to distribute and reduce the harm of LULUs by zoning, environmental laws, community participation, buffer areas, clustering, dispersing and other such devices. Thus planning tries to protect property and environmental values by finding sites and operating procedures that minimize the LULU's effects. An externality is something that happens as a result of a transaction that affects an uninvolved third party. LULU's present externalities in various ways, most notably those that inflict the senses: harsh smell, reduced aesthetics, noise pollution, and poor livability. It has been suggested that a correlation exists between the location of sites considered as locally unwanted land uses and the proximity to minority populations as a result of market dynamics. That is, externalities associated with LULUs (such as poor aesthetics, lack of desirable amenities, etc.) tend to discourage high-earning buyers from moving to the area, and thus perpetuate the cycle in which low income individuals have few choices except those which happen to be in areas with LULUs such as landfills and highways. This tends to lower home values. Further, the same market forces, especially those that may discriminate against minorities, could make it so that these areas happen to be populated predominantly by minorities. Throughout the United States, 'three out of five African Americans and Latino Americans live in communities with abandoned toxic waste sites.' This pattern is typically seen because of discrimination and racism throughout the infrastructure development process. It is becoming more and more common. What makes a LULU such as this unique is that they cause displacement, whereas a landfill, dump, roads, or prisons simply discourage home-buyers from entering the area and keep home prices low. High-end health food stores such as Whole Foods causes displacement by attracting high-earning home buyers into the area, causing rents and home prices to rise. This has been dubbed the 'Whole Foods effect'. The 'Whole Foods Effect', among other amenities being added to neighborhoods in growing communities across the U.S., is one sign pointing toward the larger problem of gentrification. Gentrification is a process of renovation and revival of deteriorated urban neighborhoods. With this process often comes LULU's such as Whole Foods, luxury housing, etc. San Francisco, like many other large cities in the United States, has a high cost of living. Its proximity to the Silicon Valley lends itself well to attracting high-income home buyers. As of 2013, 53% of low-income households throughout the entirety of the bay area were undergoing gentrification pressures caused by transit investment and new developments. Boston has been known historically for the high-cost of living that accompanies residence there, as well as being subject to various Urban renewal projects during America's Urban Renewal era. These renewal projects often caused the displacement of Jewish and Italian immigrants as well as working class individuals in surrounding areas in its earliest years. Superfund, or the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, was created to mitigate the cleanup and costs thereafter of hazardous waste sites. Superfund sites are often thought of when discussing LULUs. Love Canal was the first superfund site, established because of chemical waste that was being dumped into the canal by Hooker Electrical Company, later known as Hooker Chemical Company. The incident attracted widespread media attention and the neighborhoods surrounding Love Canal have since been destroyed. It has been suggested that some of these sites tend to be located in areas that have a high number of low-income, minority residents.