BUTLER/CUNNINGHAM

Alabama Environmental Reputation.

This site will change from time to time. Basic organization will remain constant.

click here to contact Mike Polioudakis, site developer

polioej@acesag.auburn.edu

LEVEL 2

ENVIRONMENT FACTS:

ALABAMA REPUTATION

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Environmental reputation is determined not just by the physical environment (air, water and soil) of an area but also by its history and by what people think of that area as a place to live in general. Its evaluation as a place to live depends on the availability of jobs, housing, education, and medical care; it depends on suitability for various business ventures; on having vigorous, reasonable and well-funded government environmental agencies; on having vigorous, reasonable and effective private environmental organizations; on automobile safety, personal safety from crime, and property safety from crime; and on an appearance of order such as comes from good landscaping, well-tended houses and lack of litter. Even when a place has a reasonably good physical environment now, as does Alabama, if it suffers in other ways then it will continue to have the reputation of a poor environment - fair or not.

For example, the United Health Foundation, a major researcher for the insurance industry, produces a yearly assessment of health in the various states of the US. Southern states consistently rank at the bottom, and Alabama ranks along with the rest of the South. In fact, Alabama's ranking declined from 41 in 1999 to 44 in 2000 (the most recent year available). The rankings reflect conditons that have an environmental input, such as the incidence of cancers, and so can be taken as evidence of environmental problems. Even without any explicit links, however, people take a generally low health rating to indicate a generally poor physical environment. The site for the assessments can be found through the button at left, and the actual rankings by clicking on the appropriate button for that page.

Uninsured drivers are a direct threat to well being, indicate a general attitude of disregard about the condition of self and others, and can reflect poor economic conditions. While none of these signs are necessary indicators of a poor physical environment, people take them that way. Southern states consistently have the highest percentages of uninsured drivers, with Alabama ranking number four in the country at 25% of motorists uninsured (Insurance Research Council figures for 1995-1997; at the link, click on "Publications", then scroll down to "Uninsured Motorist 2000" and click on the press release).

(The links to this next item might disappear from the Internet. If so, please contact the site developer and the item will be removed.) On the plus side, Alabama is a good place to run a small business, and seems to be improving, according to an article by Philipp Harper. He ranks Alabama as the number four state in the nation to start a small business, and the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa metropolitan area as the number eight metropolitan area. However, much of his rankings derive from taking account of low taxes, electrical costs, worker's compensation costs, and low number of bureaucrats; and with few right-to-work laws. Again, while these signs might not indicate a poor physical environment or a regressive place to live in general, people nowadays often take them that way, so that a seemingly high business ranking can serve as a two-edged sword.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) is among the poorest funded such agencies in the US. Given their level of funding, they appear to do a very good job. For example, they are making considerable strides in finding the balance between local conditions and national standards and in finding the balance between cumbersome strict external rules on users of the environment (such as farmers) and liveable general operating procedures for such users (best management practices). Even so, the low level of funding is perceived as lack of concern, and lack of concern is assumed to automatically result in a poor physical environment.

Perhaps if Alabamans continue to know their environment increasingly well, and act wisely on the basis of that knowledge, a reputation for a good physical environment can overcome the peripheral indicators that now carry so much weight.