Reckoning with the “High Line Effect”

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 3. Debating Gentrification

Abstract

New York City’s High Line Park has been an inspiration for projects throughout the world. While hailed by the city’s growth machine for serving as an economic development tool some castigate it for being an exclusionary engine of gentrification and displacement.
We compare this case with the activities of a coalition of grassroots environmental activists, community gardeners and park advocates in the process of developing a section of abandoned elevated railway in a section of Western Queens currently zoned for light manufacturing but adjacent to a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood into a public space. This project, which they call the “Ranch on Rails,” began as an illegal, gorilla garden on vacant property adjacent to the rail spur which was subsequently granted legitimacy by the owners of the land; the (Manhattan Transportation Authority), which gave them a year-by-year lease. This group envisions an urban greenway that includes urban agriculture, green infrastructure and recycling, green collar jobs and community engagement.
We examine the process of compromise between this group’s utopian vision and the realpolitik of neoliberal urban development as it unfolds. This process has become increasingly tense during the last few months as Amazon announced plans to build their new headquarters just blocks from the garden. Through our fieldwork we observe how these actors reconcile the most radical aspects of their vision with the reality of neoliberal urban development as they struggle with the question of how (or if) urban spaces can be revitalized in the interest of the community without exacerbating gentrification.

Authors

• Steven Lang, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

• Julia H. Rothenberg, CUNY Queensborough Community College