The core environmental question became where to site growth, not whether to stop it

Evidence

“There is a fundamental, still unanswered question that hangs over almost every conservation battle now being fought in this country,” the article began. “Whether it’s a local group trying to keep an oil refinery out of an estuary, or a state legislature debating … the location of a jetport, the questions are the same: Will we be forced to slow or stop our economic growth in order to preserve our environment? Where can we put the damn things?” McHarg was one of the few people who had done more than theorize about the problem. “For the past dozen years,” the article continued, “while he has been warning of approaching environmental disaster, McHarg has also been at work developing a fundamentally new approach to environmental problems: an ingenious set of analytical techniques, mapping procedures and computer programs whose aim is to take all of the paraphernalia of a growing economy – from highways and sewage plants to houses and country clubs – and fit them decently into the environment.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 715

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘where can we put the damn things’ question frames every NIMBY/siting dispute since — a strong framing for an article on the environmental movement’s internal tension.
• XREF: Siting conflicts echo the reader’s knowledge of local siting battles and environmental justice critiques of facility placement. — connects to: Preservationist defense of nature was a negative stance unfit for the urban growth challenge — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 711