Goals & Objectives:

The Inglewood project offers a rare opportunity for a multidisciplinary student team to participate in and inform an ongoing real-world study that will lead to the implementation of a new urban community on a former oil field. Student voices will matter, and student research will have an impact. The work of the student team will lay the groundwork for future phases, actively inform Sasaki’s planning and design processes, and influence the built outcomes. The research findings can potentially lead to longer term research on the redevelopment of contaminated urban sites in the US that disproportionately impact neighboring minority communities. This effort has a strong human and environmental health emphasis and will consider the health impacts of remediating and repurposing land, taking a negative community contributor and transforming it to something positive.

“The End of Oil Drilling in L.A.,” March 3, 2022, New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-los-angeles/the-end-of-oil-drilling-in-la

Theoretical Justification, Social Benefit, or Significance:

Inglewood Oil Field in Culver City, CA (Los Angeles County) is the largest urban oil field in the US. In continuous operation since 1924, when Baldwin Hills was considered “out in the country,” the 1,000-acre site with 625 active wells and visible derricks now has over one million people living within five miles. Over the next 10-15 years, Inglewood will transform. It will be decommissioned, remediated and redeveloped into a vibrant mixed-use community, with over half of its 650 acres of dramatic topography designated for connective open space. The master plan proposes sustainable district-wide systems for energy, greywater and stormwater; market-rate and affordable housing; schools; and healthy access to food.

Several studies have focused on the negative health impacts of current oil production operations on nearby residents, who are disproportionately Black and Brown and socioeconomically diverse. But this research can answer more forward-looking questions, including: What are the future public health, social and ecological implications of decommissioning and remediating this degraded industrial site? How will the healed landscape and restored ecosystems improve the livability of the surrounding communities and environmental justice? How will the site connect to the surrounding physical and cultural fabric? As the world moves away from fossil fuel dependency and a decarbonized future, can the Inglewood redevelopment serve as a model for other US cities phasing out oil and gas drilling?

Inglewood Oil Field’s redevelopment offers an environmental and social science research opportunity for a multidisciplinary team of students to participate in a complex, real-world project that can be a model for the decommissioning and redevelopment of urban industrial land.

Specific Activities & Duration:

The scale and complexity of this project lends itself to an 18-month effort that engages a team of five or more students who bring a scientific and social lens to the research. It will provide robust opportunities for students from a diverse mix of disciplines to learn and test new skills, knowing that their efforts will impact a real-world project. We are eager for the students to articulate methods during the proposal phase. We trust that their disciplinary lenses and faculty advisors will inform the proposed methods, which depend on the composition of the team. While we do not have predefined methods, we will work with the students once the team is formed, and a work plan is developed. We anticipate that the research will involve GIS, site surveys, statistically valid surveys on targeted populations, environmental assessments, public engagement, empirical studies, mapping and diagrams.

Integrative Approach:

Interdisciplinarity is a hallmark of Sasaki’s practice and the projects we undertake. This research opportunity will require a team of students drawing from a mix of the UM-SEAS disciplines, ideally all eight of the specializations. The Inglewood Oil Field research will involve a three-pronged approach integrating environmental, social and economic lenses, including: 1) study context and precedents, 2) inform real-world impacts of sustainable planning and design; and 3) use Inglewood as a model for other decommissioned contaminated urban sites and expand to a national scale.