Sustainable innovation and the siting dilemma: thoughts on the stigmatization of projects and proponents, good and bad

The exercise of siting environmentally stigmatized facilities touches the central nerve of modernity. It represents a true dilemma, a set of conflicting conditions that cannot be brought into harmony. From a local perspective, siting is commonly thought of as an act of inherent violence to place and community. At the same time, modern life generates conditions that demand some form of collective action to solve the problems it generates. Yet, whether such ‘solutions’ represent government action on behalf of the larger society or private action on behalf of entrepreneurs, the very ‘problem sets’ involved have become inherently stigmatized. By their very nature, they represent degradation, devaluation and diminution of quality of life--health, aesthetics, lifestyle and lifescape. No rational person or community would choose them, given real choices. The double entendre of modernity is that its reflexivity involves both the reflection back of socially created risks but also that these risks evoke a ‘knee jerk’ reaction of opposition. Such reviling makes perfect sense when opposition occurs to obviously ‘bad’ facilities. A much more challenging context for examination involves opposition to potentially ‘good’ projects. Using a case study, this article explores the definition of a ‘good’ sustainable project, the dynamics needed to achieve sustainability, and the roadblocks to sustainable action that occur with shallow rather than deep resistence to siting.