Policies that Protect
the Scenic Environment
Strengthen the Economy

Places that care for their historic and scenic beauty attract and retain more businesses. Why? Because owners weigh more than just economic factors when deciding where to locate. The book Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities (Island Press, 1997), by Howe, McMahon, and Probst, cites a number of studies about the relationship between quality of life and economic growth.

In 1992, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) measured the gross product, total employment, construction employment, and labor productivity of every state. Researchers found that policies promoting environmental quality enhance, rather than hinder, economic growth and development. Unlike the old smokestack industries, high-technology firms and research-and-development laboratories migrate to states with strong environmental policies.

A 1993 study from the Bank of America ranked each state according to the strength of its environmental standards. The study determined that, in the long term, states with strong policies protecting scenic, ecological, and historical assets outperform states with weak policies. Clearly, robust economies grow in states that work to preserve quality of life.

 

Beauty and the Pennsylvania Workforce

During past decade, 136,000 more people moved out of Pennsylvania than moved in. Most of this loss consisted of young people, whose career needs and quality-of-life desires were not being met by living in this state.

Such a demographic shift poses serious problems for a state where tax revenue is drawn largely from personal earnings and consumption. What will happen 10 or 20 years from now? Will the state have a large enough workforce to support the services that an increasingly older population requires?
 

Pennsylvania's Future

Pennsylvania faces an economic future filled with change, uncertainty, and very real challenges. Pennsylvania has advantages that many other states cannot match: distinctive historic communities; sophisticated cultural amenities, and sublime outdoor recreation.

This "quality of place" is vital in attracting knowledge-oriented workers and in supporting leading-edge high technology firms and industries. Americans are saying that where they live is as important as what they do for a living. Why would Pennsylvania squander this asset by ignoring the value of its scenic beauty and allowing the environment to be invaded by uncontrolled outdoor advertising?

People used to move to find jobs, but nowadays companies are moving to find the people. In areas that are experiencing a decline in the overall quality of life, businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit workers. And the country's highest growth industries--health care, computer software, electronics manufacturing, and professional services--rely heavily on employee satisfaction when making decisions about where to locate. If Pennsylvania does not act to protect its scenic environment, we risk further erosion of our workforce.

As the world economy has changed, quality of life has become a key factor in competition for business. According to www.issuespa.net, Pennsylvania's goal should be to offer the most attractive place for today's decision-makers to work and live.
 

On the Road

Most Americans spend a substantial amount of their lives in motor vehicles: driving to and from work and between work-related appointments, taking children to school, going shopping and to medical appointments, doing errands, attending sporting and cultural events, going to places of worship, visiting friends and relatives, and taking vacations.

Even more time is spent behind the wheel by those who drive professionally, such as truck and taxi drivers and delivery people.

Eighty-seven percent of Pennsylvania workers commute by car. On average, they spend five hours a week just getting to and from their jobs! The quality of this time affects the overall quality of their lives.

An article in The Journal of Environmental Psychology (1998, Volume 18, pp.113-140) describes a Texas A&M University study which found that highway clutter adds a significant amount of stress to the commuting experience. Participants in the study were exposed to simulated stressful situations and then tested along two different "virtual" roads: one blighted by sprawl, strip development, and billboards and one that was rural and unspoiled in character. Stress levels declined quickly for those driving on undeveloped rural roads, but remained high for those exposed to unbridled development. The continuously stressed drivers exhibited elevated blood pressure and heart-and-respiration rates, along with increased eye movements and facial muscle activity.

Sign clutter is potentially dangerous. In September 2001, the Federal Highway Administration, Office of Safety Research & Development, released the "Research Review of Potential Safety Effects of Electronic Billboards on Driver Attention and Distraction." The 47-page study found that "the ability to handle selective and divided attention demands may have the greatest impact on crash rates."

Billboards not only create stressful and distracting conditions, they also contaminate the beauty of our visual environment. They make the vast amount of time spent in cars less enjoyable and diminish the overall quality of life in Pennsylvania. Because quality of life is a dominant factor in decision-making about where to live, the state cannot afford to ignore the issue of sign control.

In the book Job Creation in America: How Our Smallest Companies Put the Most People to Work (Free Press, 1987), author David L. Birch says that 90 percent of America's new jobs are being created by small "high-innovative firms," which employ fewer than 20 employees. Birch maintains that these firms, which rely primarily on an educated, highly skilled workforce, will locate in environments that "bright, creative people find attractive."