作者：Jason A. Heppler

? ? ? ? ? Jason A. Heppler 是喬治梅森大學羅伊·羅森茨維格歷史與新媒體中心的歷史學家和軟件開發(fā)人員，著有《硅谷與高科技城市化的環(huán)境不平等》（Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism）（俄克拉荷馬大學出版社，2024 年）

發(fā)布時間：2023 年 11 月 15 日

原文網址: https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/november-2023/spoiled-fruits-environmental-inequality-in-silicon-valley

When Wallace Stegner arrived in Palo Alto, California, in 1945, he wrote a friend with his first impressions of his new home. The novelist and new Stanford faculty member found the Santa Clara Valley to be “very pleasant country” of “golden wild-oat hills dotted with marvelous old liveoaks and bay trees, with a dark pine-covered ridge of the coast ridge behind, and in front the hills dropping down over orchards and towns to the bay. . . . There are views to knock your eye out all over these hills.” Two decades later, Stegner’s celebration became a lament. “The orchards that used to be a spring garden of bloom down the long trough of the Santa Clara Valley,” he wrote in 1965, “have gone under so fast that a person absent for five years could return and think himself in another country. . . . The once-lovely coast hills reaching down the Peninsula below San Francisco have been crusted with houses in half a lifetime, the hilltops flattened, whole hills carried off to fill the bay, the creeks turned into concrete storm drains.” Employment in high-tech companies drove massive migrations to the valley that, in turn, led to sprawling cities who competed with one another over land.

? ? ? ? ? 1945年，當華萊士·斯特格納（Wallace Stegner）抵達加利福尼亞州帕洛阿爾托時，他寫信給一位朋友，講述了他對新家的第一印象。這位小說家與斯坦福大學的新教員發(fā)現(xiàn)，圣克拉拉山谷是一個“環(huán)境宜人的地方”，“金色的野燕麥山，點綴著奇妙的老橡樹和月桂樹，后面是海岸山脊上長滿黑松的山脊，在前面是山巒起伏，越過果園和城鎮(zhèn)，一直延伸到海灣……這些山上到處都是令人目眩的景色?！倍旰?，斯特格納的慶祝變成了哀嘆。他在 1965 年寫道：“圣克拉拉山谷長谷下曾經是鮮花盛開的春天花園的果園，現(xiàn)在已經衰敗得如此之快，以至于一個離開五年的人回來后會覺得自己身處另一個國家……曾經美麗的海岸山丘一直延伸到舊金山下方的半島，半輩子的時間里，房屋都被覆蓋了，山頂被夷為平地，整座山被運走填平了海灣，小溪變成了混凝土雨水渠。”高科技公司的就業(yè)推動了大規(guī)模人口向山谷的遷移，這反過來又導致城市不斷擴張，相互爭奪土地。 ??

Stegner arrived at the front edge of a massive migration to the Santa Clara Valley—stretching from San Francisco through San Jose to Hollister—in the immediate postwar era. For the next decade, the landscape of orchards and pleasantness remained a key selling point enticing white-collar workers and high-tech manufacturers. As late as 1953, the San Jose Chamber of Commerce continued organizing blossom tours that gave residents a chance to drive along the county’s highways and witness the seasonal blooming of prune, pear, almond, apricot, and cherry orchards. Yet it was this landscape that helped lead to the widespread and rapid changes Stegner identified in 1965. The valley’s boosters promised a countryside lifestyle for work and home; city councils smoothed the way for new development; and universities pursued military contracts that funneled billions of dollars into the region. Throughout the valley’s burgeoning office and research parks designed to support the growing electronics industry, one booster promised a “pleasant place” of “broad lawns, employee patios, trees, flowers and shrubs, walls of glass, recreational clubs” instead of the “smokestacks, noise, coal cars, [and] soot” of the Northeast and Midwest. High-tech manufacturing, it seemed, solved two problems: assuring the nation of a new form of industrial work as steel-age industry declined while also being a clean and modern alternative to industrial activity. Such promises ignored the material realities of high-tech research and manufacturing, whose reliance on chemicals and attendant urban growth prompted water pollution, environmental inequality, and farmland reduction that reshaped the landscape into the Silicon Valley we know today.??

? ? ? ? ? 戰(zhàn)后不久，斯特格納就來到了圣克拉拉谷大規(guī)模移民的前沿——從舊金山經圣何塞一直延伸到霍利斯特。果園的風景和宜人的環(huán)境仍然是吸引白領工人和高科技制造商的一個關鍵賣點。直到 1953 年，圣何塞商會還在繼續(xù)組織賞花之旅，讓居民有機會驅車沿著縣高速公路行駛，欣賞梅園、梨園、扁桃園、杏園和櫻桃園的四季花開。然而，正是這種景觀促成了斯特格納在 1965 年指出的廣泛而迅速的變化。硅谷建設的推動者們承諾為工作和家庭提供一種鄉(xiāng)村生活方式；市議會為新的發(fā)展鋪平了道路；大學為爭取軍事合同向該地區(qū)輸送了數十億美元。在整個硅谷中為支持不斷發(fā)展的電子行業(yè)而蓬勃發(fā)展的辦公樓和研究園區(qū)，一位支持者承諾將提供一個“宜人的地方”，其中包括“寬闊的草坪、員工露臺、樹木、花卉和灌木、玻璃墻、休閑俱樂部”，而不是東北部的“煙囪”和中西部的“噪音、運煤車和煤煙”。高科技制造業(yè)似乎解決了兩個問題：隨著鋼鐵時代工業(yè)的衰落，高科技制造業(yè)為國家提供了一種新的工業(yè)工作形式，同時也是一種清潔、現(xiàn)代化的工業(yè)活動替代品。這些承諾忽視了高科技研究和制造的物質現(xiàn)實，其對化學品的依賴和隨之而來的城市發(fā)展造成了水污染、環(huán)境不平等和農田減少，從而重塑了我們今天所知的硅谷的面貌。

Until the 1950s, agriculture was the valley’s primary economic activity, earning it the 19th-century nickname “the Garden of the World.” The exceptional climate, fertile soils, and plentiful water allowed farmers to cultivate a wide variety of fruits. The region’s farms led the state in fruit cultivation, drying, canning, and packing, making it a major fruit distributor in the early 20th century. As early as 1895, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated nearly 40,000 acres of the valley were devoted to fruit cultivation, reaching a peak of 727,000 acres by the mid-1940s.

? ? ? ? ? 直到 20 世紀 50 年代，農業(yè)一直是硅谷（圣克拉拉谷）的主要經濟產業(yè)，因此在 19 世紀享有“世界花園”的美稱。得天獨厚的氣候、肥沃的土壤和充足的水源使農民能夠種植各種各樣的水果。該地區(qū)的農場在水果種植、烘干、罐裝和包裝方面處于全國領先地位，使其在 20 世紀初成為主要的水果集散地。早在 1895 年，《舊金山紀事報》就評估圣克拉拉山谷有近 40000 英畝的土地用于水果種植，到 20 世紀 40 年代中期達到 727000 英畝的峰值。 ??

After World War II, Santa Clara County’s demographics and economy began to shift. By the 1950s, 4,000 people a month were moving into the county, nearly doubling the prewar population. In 1960, the county surpassed San Francisco as the region’s urban center. San Jose typified the pace and expansion of this period. Contained to just 17 square miles in 1952, the city sprawled outward to encompass 137 square miles by 1965 through an aggressive annexation campaign led by city manager Dutch Hamann and a supportive city council.

? ? ? ? ? 第二次世界大戰(zhàn)后，圣克拉拉的人口結構和經濟開始發(fā)生變化。到 20 世紀 50 年代，每月有 4000 人遷入該縣，幾乎是戰(zhàn)前的兩倍。1960 年，圣克拉拉超過舊金山，成為該地區(qū)的城市中心。圣何塞是這一時期快速擴張的典型代表。1952 年，圣何塞的面積僅為 17 平方英里，到 1965 年，在城市經理達奇·哈曼（Dutch Hamann）和支持他的市議會的領導下，通過積極的兼并運動，城市面積擴展到 137 平方英里。

The farmlands, so attractive to new homeowners who wished for a countryside experience, quickly gave way to subdivisions. Some farmers saw opportunity in their land used for urban growth as land prices rose dramatically, fetching as much as $7,000 per acre by the mid-1950s. By the 1970s, agricultural land was selling for upwards of $18,000 an acre. Local historian Yvonne Jacobson estimates that 77,000 acres of the valley floor left agricultural production between 1950 and 1980. By 1982, 20,000 acres of agricultural land remained in the valley, falling to just 4,500 acres by 2001, mostly near the South Bay cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy.

? ? ? ? ? 農田對于想要體驗鄉(xiāng)村體驗的新房主來說非常有吸引力，但很快就被社區(qū)所取代。隨著土地價格的大幅上漲，到 20 世紀 50 年代中期，每英畝土地的價格高達 7000 美元，一些農民從用于城市發(fā)展的土地中看到了商機。到 20 世紀 70 年代，農業(yè)用地的售價高達每英畝 18000 美元。據當地歷史學家伊馮·雅各布森（Yvonne Jacobson）估計，1950 年至 1980 年間，有 77000 英畝的谷底土地不再用于農業(yè)生產。到 1982 年，山谷中仍有 20000 英畝的農業(yè)用地，到 2001 年，農田面積下降到僅有 4500 英畝，大部分位于南灣城市摩根山 (Morgan Hill) 附近和吉爾羅伊。 ??

Such rapid growth came with consequences, and not just on the surface. Beginning in the 1920s, population growth led to an increase in both private and public wells, which drew down aquifer levels and led to compression of the ground above. In 1921, engineers warned that the valley’s falling water tables and subsidence threatened to disrupt farming operations and damage city infrastructure. Postwar urban growth, however, accelerated the overdrafting of water resources and ground compression. Downtown San Jose sank 14 feet over the course of the 1950s, while Alviso, located at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay and already below sea level, sank six feet. The shifting ground led rivers and creeks to angle farther downward, allowing them to carry larger and heavier sediment and exacerbating flooding. These altered drainage patterns worsened a massive flood in a Christmas 1955 deluge that overwhelmed Sunnyvale and Alviso.

? ? ? ? ? 如此快速的增長帶來了不好的后果，而且不僅僅是表面上的。從 20 世紀 20 年代開始，人口增長導致私人和公共水井的增加，從而降低了含水層水位并導致地面沉降。1921 年，工程師們警告說，硅谷地下水位下降和地面沉降有可能破壞農業(yè)生產并損壞城市基礎設施。然而，戰(zhàn)后的城市發(fā)展加速了水資源的過度消耗和地面沉降。20 世紀 50 年代，圣何塞市中心下沉了 14 英尺，而位于舊金山灣南端、已經低于海平面的阿爾維索也下沉了 6 英尺。地表的移動導致河流和小溪向下傾斜，使其能夠攜帶更大、更重的沉積物，加劇了洪水泛濫。這些改變的排水模式加劇了 1955 年圣誕節(jié)洪水泛濫，淹沒了桑尼維爾和阿爾維索。

In response, the county’s water conservation district built a new system of dikes and levees in the latter half of the 1950s. But the flood prevention system ended at the Sunnyvale city limits, leaving Alviso, a predominantly Latinx community, threatened by future floods. Town leaders appealed to the Army Corps of Engineers and congressional representatives to find solutions but found themselves in an impossible situation: the corps rejected appeals for new flood control projects because of high costs, and the city could not secure government grants to pay for the project. Over the next three decades, Alviso would face at least four more city-inundating floods. In addition to the flooding threats, San Jose constructed a sewage processing facility near Alviso’s city limits in the mid-1950s, off-loading smells, chemicals, and disposal away from San Jose city limits. Alviso became a dumping ground for the expanding, mostly white communities of San Jose and Sunnyvale.

? ? ? ? ? 為此，圣克拉拉的水資源保護區(qū)在 20 世紀 50 年代后半期修建了新的堤壩系統(tǒng)。但防洪系統(tǒng)的終點是桑尼維爾的邊界，這使得阿爾維索這個以拉丁裔為主的社區(qū)受到了未來洪水的威脅。鎮(zhèn)領導呼吁陸軍工程兵部隊和國會代表尋找解決方案，但他們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己陷入了無法解決的境地：工程兵部隊以成本高昂為由拒絕了新防洪項目的呼吁，而該市又無法獲得政府撥款來支付該項目費用。在接下來的三十年里，阿爾維索至少又面臨了四次淹沒城市的洪水。除了洪水威脅之外，圣何塞還于 20 世紀 50 年代中期在阿爾維索市區(qū)附近建造了一個污水處理設施，將廢氣、化學物質和工業(yè)廢物排放到遠離圣何塞市區(qū)的地方。阿爾維索成為圣何塞和桑尼維爾不斷擴大的白人社區(qū)的垃圾場。

Situating the spoils of urban growth away from cities allowed them to prioritize the rural aesthetics that mattered so greatly to the growing white-collar class. Undoubtedly the valley has an undeniable beauty, and nearly year-round pleasant weather factored into selling the valley to potential industrial recruits and white-collar workers. But that very perception of the valley’s unique nature helped fuel shifting political attitudes, and voters began questioning the expansion-at-all-costs city councils. Council candidates began running for—and winning—seats by supporting slower growth, opposing higher taxes, and questioning the inability of city services to keep pace with expansion. Again, San Jose typified these changes. Virginia Shaffer’s 1962 election to the council drove the first wedge into San Jose’s drive at growth, followed over the next decade by other antigrowth council members. In 1974, the election of Mayor Janet Gray Hayes solidified a new environmentalist wing of politicians in city government. Hayes, a self-avowed environmentalist and the city’s first female mayor, shifted the city’s policies away from expansion and toward improving city services within existing city limits.

? ? ? ? ? 將城市發(fā)展的成果安置在遠離城市的地方，使他們能夠優(yōu)先考慮鄉(xiāng)村美學，這對日益壯大的白領階層來說非常重要。毫無疑問，硅谷擁有無可爭議的美景，幾乎全年宜人的氣候也是向潛在的工業(yè)新員工和白領階層推銷硅谷的因素之一。但是，對硅谷獨特性的認識助長了政治態(tài)度的轉變，選民開始質疑不惜一切代價擴張的市議會。市議會候選人開始通過支持放緩增長、反對提高稅收以及質疑城市服務無法跟上擴張步伐來競選并贏得席位。圣何塞也是這些變化的典型代表。弗吉尼亞·謝弗 (Virginia Shaffer)?在 1962 年當選為市議員，為圣荷西的增長動力打下了第一個楔子，在接下來的十年中，其他反對增長的市議員也紛紛加入。1974 年，珍妮特·格雷·海斯 (Janet Gray Hayes) 當選市長，鞏固了市政府中新的環(huán)保主義政治派別。海斯自稱是環(huán)保主義者，也是該市第一位女市長，她將城市政策從擴張轉向在現(xiàn)有城市范圍內改善城市服務。 ?

While urban growth presented one way of altering the environment, another came from the economic activity of the valley itself. Today, we think of the largely web- and software-based companies of Apple, Facebook, and Google, but until the 1980s, the primary industrial activity was electronics manufacturing. When technology journalist Don Hoefler first printed the name “Silicon Valley” in 1971, thus rendering its nickname as the place name, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and many other companies employed both white-collar research-and-development engineers and scientists and blue-collar workers, largely people of color and predominantly women, who assembled the chips, circuit boards, and other hardware. While high-tech had sold itself as a cleaner, greener alternative to industrialization, manufacturing electrical components relied on chemicals and gases to give silicon components their conductive properties. These chemicals often threatened the health of assembly line workers. Reports of chemical burns, asthma, cancer, and a host of other health issues became common over the 1970s. So often did laborers bring forth stories of adverse health effects that Robin Baker, Amanda Hawes, and Pat Lamborn started the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health in the late 1970s to represent workers harmed by chip manufacturing.

? ? ? ? ? 城市發(fā)展是改變環(huán)境的一種方式，而另一種方式則來自于硅谷本身的經濟活動。今天，我們想到的主要是蘋果（Apple）、臉書（Facebook）和谷歌（Google）等以網絡和軟件為基礎的公司，但直到 20 世紀 80 年代，主要的工業(yè)活動還是電子制造業(yè)。當科技記者唐納德·霍夫勒（Don Hoefler）于 1971 年首次將“硅谷”這個名字印在報紙上，并將其昵稱作為地名時，惠普（HP）、仙童半導體 (Fairchild Semiconductor)、英特爾（Intel）、超威半導體（AMD）以及其他許多公司都雇用了白領研發(fā)工程師和科學家，以及藍領工人（主要是有色人種，其中以女性為主），他們負責組裝芯片、電路板和其他硬件。雖然高科技以更清潔、更環(huán)保的工業(yè)化替代品自居，但電子元件的生產需要依賴化學品和氣體來賦予硅元件導電性能。這些化學品經常威脅裝配線工人的健康。在 20 世紀 70 年代，有關化學燒傷、哮喘、癌癥和其他一系列健康問題的報道屢見不鮮。羅賓·貝克（Robin Baker）、阿曼達·霍斯（Amanda Hawes）和帕特·蘭博恩（Pat Lamborn）在 20 世紀 70 年代末成立了圣克拉拉職業(yè)安全與健康中心，代表因芯片制造而受到傷害的工人。 ?

These chemicals were not widely recognized for their carcinogenic properties, nor were they effectively monitored. In January 1982, readers of the San Jose Mercury reported that chemical contaminants had been found in the city’s public and private drinking wells. When installing a storage tank at Fairchild in the southern end of the city, workers found that an older tank was leaking chemical solvents into groundwater. For residents of the nearby Los Paseos neighborhood, the stories of miscarriages, strange-tasting water, and childhood health problems suddenly had an explanation. The county began a rapid investigation, drilling testing wells throughout the county and revealing more leaks—not just at Fairchild but at HP, Intel, AMD, and elsewhere. Contaminants, it seemed, had left no part of the county untouched. In the wake of this news, attorney Ted Smith formed the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition to track information about chemical leaks, hold companies accountable, and help draft new pollution ordinances. Within a year, California congressional representatives secured investigations by the Environmental Protection Agency; by 1990, the agency listed 29 Superfund sites in Santa Clara County—24 caused by high-tech companies—making the county among the most contaminated in the nation.?

? ? ? ? ? 這些化學物質的致癌性并未得到廣泛認可，也沒有得到有效監(jiān)測。1982 年 1 月，《圣何塞水星報》的讀者報道稱，在該市的公共和私人飲用水井中發(fā)現(xiàn)了化學污染物。在該市南端的仙童公司（Fairchild）安裝儲油罐時，工人們發(fā)現(xiàn)一個舊儲油罐正在向地下水泄漏化學溶劑。對于附近 Los Paseos 社區(qū)的居民來說，流產、怪味水和兒童健康問題的故事突然有了解釋。圣克拉拉開始迅速展開調查，在全縣范圍內鉆井檢測，并發(fā)現(xiàn)了更多的泄漏點——不僅僅是仙童公司，還有惠普、英特爾、AMD 等公司?？磥?，污染物已經遍布該縣的每一個角落。得知這一消息后，泰德·史密斯（Ted Smith）律師成立了“硅谷有毒物質聯(lián)盟”（Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition），追蹤化學品泄漏信息，追究公司責任，并幫助起草新的污染法規(guī)。在一年之內，加利福尼亞州的國會代表確保了環(huán)境保護局的調查；到 1990 年，該機構在圣克拉拉縣列出了 29 個超級基金站點（由于危險廢物的傾倒、露天堆放或其他不當管理，美國有數千個污染場地。這些場所包括生產設施、加工廠、垃圾填埋場和采礦場。CERCLA 的非正式名稱是 "超級基金"。它允許環(huán)保局清理受污染的場所。它還強制污染責任方進行清理，或向政府償還 EPA 主導的清理工作的費用），其中 24 個是由高科技公司造成的，這使得圣克拉拉成為全美污染最嚴重的地區(qū)之一。

Silicon Valley’s relationship to nature was and is cultural and material. The valley’s reputation was closely tied to nature—a reputation that persists to this day through its supposed eco-friendly companies, cars, and leisure. Environmental tensions continue and have expanded beyond Northern California through the mining of rare earth metals, cryptomining operations, and server farms that make possible the internet and the laptops, phones, tablets, watches, and other smart devices that power our modern lives. Silicon Valley’s environmental history urges us to dwell on failure: beneath the green veneer of high-tech companies lies a past that was anything but its clean image.

? ? ? ? ? 硅谷與自然無論過去還是現(xiàn)在都具有文化與物質性的聯(lián)系。硅谷的聲譽與自然緊密相連，這種聲譽通過其所謂的環(huán)保型公司、汽車和休閑方式延續(xù)至今。環(huán)境緊張局勢持續(xù)存在，并通過稀土金屬開采、加密采礦作業(yè)和服務器農場而擴大到北加州以外的地區(qū)，這些服務器農場使互聯(lián)網以及為我們現(xiàn)代生活提供動力的筆記本電腦、手機、平板電腦、手表和其他智能設備成為可能。硅谷的環(huán)境歷史促使我們牢記教訓：在高科技公司的綠色外表下，隱藏著一段與干凈形象完全不同的歷史。

封面：Calgon Carbon 公司工廠使用的過熱工藝會向空氣中釋放名為二惡英的化學物質，這種物質與癌癥和出生缺陷有關。