Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

After I’d returned home from my visit to Baton Rouge, I discovered an illuminating report on how industries deal with the fact that people don’t want them to move in next door. It was written by J. Stephen Powell of the Los Angeles–based consulting firm Cerrell Associates, Inc., and was entitled “Political Difficulties Facing Waste-to-Energy Conversion Plant Siting.” The fifty-seven-page report was proprietary and eventually leaked—by whom, I couldn’t find out. It was produced in a different time (1984) and place (Los Angeles) but is as relevant today as it was then. The California Waste Management Board paid Cerrell Associates $500,000 to define communities that would not resist “locally undesirable land use” (LULU).