Salvage and Speculation: Austerity Governance in Park Planning

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Urban Space, Development, and Gentrification

Abstract

Postindustrial brownfields and flood zones are usually considered a liability for property development or municipal planning, but they are often developed as parks and green spaces. Scholars have tended to theorize park projects as either strategies for creating real estate profit opportunities associated with gentrification or, alternatively, as markers of disinvestment and state abandonment when they are left unmaintained or cared for. However, this dichotomy tends to overlook the large share of park projects developed at modest cost for modest benefits like managing environmental hazards in local communities, projects located in places like brownfields or flood zones. Drawing on ethnographic analysis (including 78 in-depth interviews) of park planning and management, this paper analyzes the political ecology of these more small and mundane investments in parks and green spaces that may not create new opportunities for development profits but are investments in parks, nonetheless. What explains the acquisition of these marginal lands for parks within cities? Specifically, building on theories of austerity urbanism, I argue that park agencies not only acquire land with the aim of shaping markets to boost development but also to exploit market opportunities to acquire land in places where it is devalued or in timely moments before development pressures raise property values. The case of park planning illustrates a political ecology of public austerity that exists alongside the political ecologies of economic growth insofar as parks can be relatively low-cost, low-risk state responses to public demands.

Author

• Cal Lee Garrett, Wake Forest University