More than “Just Green Enough”: Helping Park Professionals Achieve Equitable Greening and Limit Environmental Gentrification
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18666/JPRA-2019-9654Keywords:
Urban green space, green gentrification, environmental justice, urban parks, equityAbstract
Cities around the world are increasingly developing iconic parks and greenways in historically marginalized neighborhoods to provide social, health, and environmental benefits to their residents. Yet some iconic green space projects trigger increases in housing prices in nearby areas, resulting in the influx of wealthy newcomers and the displacement of the lowest income residents, in a process referred to as environmental gentrification. In this context, park and recreation managers face a dilemma: How should they integrate green spaces in low-income areas when those efforts might ultimately displace the vulnerable residents they are designed to serve?
To resolve this dilemma, scholars have proposed the concept of “just green enough” to describe sustainability-oriented initiatives that seek to promote green space development while keeping low-income residents in place. Yet we know very little about what this “just green enough” approach means for park and recreation management or how it relates to the three key components of environmental justice (distributional, procedural, and interactional).
To address this gap, we explore strategies that park and recreation managers are employing to combat environmental gentrification. Using comparative case studies of park projects in Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia, we integrate primary interview and focus group data with information from secondary sources (e.g., recreation management plans, land use plans, housing policies) to search for solutions that can work across a range of diverse contexts.
We advance the “just green enough” approach by presenting four sets of strategies that park and recreation professionals can use to achieve environmentally just outcomes when working on new or renovated parks in marginalized communities. First, park agencies need to partner with urban planners to establish or preserve a sufficient number of affordable housing units near new or renovated parks. Second, park agencies need to ensure that their leadership staff and on-the-ground employees reflect the ethnoracial diversity of the communities around new or renovated parks. Third, community outreach activities for new or renovated parks should adequately engage people of different races/ethnicities, ages, and incomes, and prepare the most marginalized people to meaningfully participate. Fourth, new and renovated parks and their recreation programs should welcome and engage longtime residents, and not just wealthier newcomers. Together, these strategies outline a more than “just green enough” approach that helps park professionals achieve equitable greening by (1) ensuring marginalized populations get just as much, if not more, access to quality green space as privileged groups, and (2) protecting longtime local residents’ ability to stay in place and thrive in the face of gentrification.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Sagamore Publishing LLC (hereinafter the “Copyright Owner”)
Journal Publishing Copyright Agreement for Authors
PLEASE REVIEW OUR POLICIES AND THE PUBLISHING AGREEMENT, AND INDICATE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS BY CHECKING THE ‘AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS COPYRIGHT NOTICE’ CHECKBOX BELOW.
I understand that by submitting an article to Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, I am granting the copyright to the article submitted for consideration for publication in Journal of Park and Recreation Administration to the Copyright Owner. If after consideration of the Editor of the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, the article is not accepted for publication, all copyright covered under this agreement will be automatically returned to the Author(s).
THE PUBLISHING AGREEMENT
Assignment of Copyright
I hereby assign to the Copyright Owner the copyright in the manuscript I am submitting in this online procedure and any tables, illustrations or other material submitted for publication as part of the manuscript in all forms and media (whether now known or later developed), throughout the world, in all languages, for the full term of copyright, effective when the article is accepted for publication.
Reversion of Rights
Articles may sometimes be accepted for publication but later be rejected in the publication process, even in some cases after public posting in “Articles in Press” form, in which case all rights will revert to the Author.
Retention of Rights for Scholarly Purposes
I understand that I retain or am hereby granted the Retained Rights. The Retained Rights include the right to use the Preprint, Accepted Manuscript, and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use and Internal Institutional Use.
All journal material is under a 12 month embargo. Authors who would like to have their articles available as open access should contact gbates@sagamorepub.com for further information.
In the case of the Accepted Manuscript and the Published Journal Article, the Retained Rights exclude Commercial Use, other than use by the author in a subsequent compilation of the author’s works or to extend the Article to book length form or re-use by the author of portions or excerpts in other works.
Published Journal Article: the author may share a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI.
Author Representations
- The Article I have submitted to the journal for review is original, has been written by the stated author(s) and has not been published elsewhere.
- The Article was not submitted for review to another journal while under review by this journal and will not be submitted to any other journal.
- The Article contains no libelous or other unlawful statements and does not contain any materials that violate any personal or proprietary rights of any other person or entity.
- I have obtained written permission from copyright owners for any excerpts from copyrighted works that are included and have credited the sources in the Article.
- If the Article was prepared jointly with other authors, I have informed the co-author(s) of the terms of this Journal Publishing Agreement and that I am signing on their behalf as their agent, and I am authorized to do so.