Greenish-Grey: Navigating Professional Expertise in the Sustainable City

• In Event: Experimental Infrastructures: Material Insufficiency, Scale, and the Question of (Im)possibility - I

Abstract

Restoring the Chesapeake Bay, the ecologically and economically significant estuary, has long been a cause for environmental activists in the Mid-Atlantic region. In 2007, recognizing stormwater runoff as a major contributor to pollution, the state of Maryland mandated that all development and redevelopment must utilize environmental site design (ESD) to the ‘maximum extent practicable’. ESD installations feature natural elements including trees, native plants, and soil that effectively mimic the pre-development conditions of a given site, thus reducing the nutrient load within stormwater runoff. These installations are also referred to as green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) and are argued to provide social, health, and economic benefits. Thus, GSI aims at transformative ends – a technological system both ecologically sound and socially rehabilitative.


Yet, GSI has proven a remarkably controversial in urban areas such as Baltimore City. Installations often suffer from poor maintenance and quickly fall into disrepair. Additionally, professionals tasked with the implementation of these structures lament a lack of agreed upon design standards. In this presentation, I examine how this novel form of infrastructural development has challenged the professional identities of state engineers, landscape architects, and urban planners. Drawing from semi-structured interviews and archival data, I trace the history of GSI implementation within Baltimore City. Attention is given to practitioners involved in the funding, implementation, and construction of GSI. By drawing together these multiple professional conflicts, I suggest that struggles over expertise offer one potential space for practical intervention in the future scaling and stabilization of transformative infrastructures.

Author

• Amanda K Phillips de Lucas, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies