Rail-to-park transformations in 21st century modern cities: Green gentrification on track

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110100
Author(s):  
Lucía Argüelles ◽  
Helen V.S. Cole ◽  
Isabelle Anguelovski

With urban greening projects increasingly sparking conflicts with environmental and social activists, rail-to-park transformations reveal how ideas of modernity in urban planning enable the perfect “green growth machine.” Here, trains and connectivity—powerful symbols of Modernity in the 19th and 20th centuries—are interlaced with greening and sustainability, motives of the current progress paradigm, and planning orthodoxy. Through a political economy and political ecology lens, we analyze the material and symbolic assembly of two recent railway transformations—Valencia Parc Central and the Atlanta Beltline—and their associated parks. We examine the actual process under which parks are created (parks as a tangible, material object, as infrastructure) and how such a process is entangled in social, political, and economic dynamics that also shape adjacent gentrification. We argue that gentrification is implicit, yet necessary, in the process of park making. Such a process and its embedded politics shape the role that parks have in their neighborhoods and their cities, and what it is expected from them socially, politically, and financially. The conflicts arising from the park making illustrate the two speeds working within 21st century cities: the fast, modern, outward-looking competitive model and the inward-looking, caring more for local revitalization and residents’ welfare.

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Garcia-Lamarca ◽  
Isabelle Anguelovski ◽  
Helen Cole ◽  
James JT Connolly ◽  
Lucía Argüelles ◽  
...  

Increasingly, greening in cities across the Global North is enmeshed in strategies for attracting capital investment, raising the question: for whom is the future green city? Through exploring the relationship between cities’ green boosterist rhetoric, affordability and social equity considerations within greening programmes, this paper examines the extent to which, and why, the degree of green branding – that is, urban green boosterism – predicts the variation in city affordability. We present the results of a mixed methods, macroscale analysis of the greening trajectories of 99 cities in Western Europe, the USA and Canada. Our regression analysis of green rhetoric shows a trend toward higher cost of living among cities with the longest duration and highest intensity green rhetoric. We then use qualitative findings from Nantes, France, and Austin, USA, as two cases to unpack why green boosterism correlates with lower affordability. Key factors determining the relation between urban greening and affordability include the extent of active municipal intervention, redistributional considerations and the historic importance of inclusion and equity in urban development. We conclude by considering what our results mean for the urban greening agenda in the context of an ongoing green growth imperative going forward.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Paulo Vianna Franco

Based on the ecological utopianism of Narodnik thinkers, this article assesses the programmatic concept of ecological neo-narodnism, as put forth by Martinez-Alier (1987), addressing (1) to what extent it conforms to the intellectual legacy of the Narodniki? (2) what are its main theoretical foundations and policy recommendations for a peasant economy in the 21st century? and (3) how it contributes to contemporary social and environmental challenges. It explores in detail the ecological economic theories which can be applied to the peasant economy according to the ideology of ecological neo-narodnism, the latter analyzed from the perspectives of the fields of political economy and political ecology. Peasant movements are addressed as the manifestation of such a worldview. Finally, the contributions of ecological neo-narodnism to overcome current social and environmental challenges are discussed and associated with economic degrowth.


2017 ◽  
pp. 15-53
Author(s):  
Carolina Arias Hurtado

En el artículo, se realiza una aproximación a la problemática del neoextractivismo en el siglo xxi desde la ecología política en el ámbito regional, nacional y local. En primer lugar, se presenta un panorama sobre las contradicciones del desarrollo neoextractivista en América Latina como expresión de la crisis multidimensional y la necesidad de búsqueda de alternativas. Enseguida, se examina la situación actual del neoextractivismo en Colombia, a partir del reconocimiento de los conflictos socioambientales y las luchas sociales por la justicia ambiental. Por último, se analiza el caso del municipio de Marmato (Colombia), lugar emblemático por la constante defensa del territorio como un patrimonio y un derecho.Palabras clave: neoextractivismo, ecología política, conflictos socioambientales, justicia ambiental. AbstractNeo-extractivism in Latin America and Colombia: a political ecology reflexion In this article an approach is performed to the problematic of neoextractivism in the 21st century at a regional, national and local level from the political ecology view. In the first place, it presents a panorama on the contradictions of the neo-extractivist development in Latin America, as an expression of the multidimensional crisis and the needing to search for alternatives. Next, it examines the current situation of neo-extractivism in Colombia from the * Estudiante del doctorado en Estudios del Desarrollo de la Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas (México). Correo electrónico: [email protected] Controversia 207 abril 2018.indd 17 6/25/2018 8:20:18 PM 18 Controversia 208 recognition of the social-environmental conflicts and social struggles for environmental justice. Finally, the paper analyzes the case of the municipality of Marmato (Colombia), emblematic in the defense of the territory as a heritage and a right.Keywords: neo-extractivism, political ecology, social-environmental conflicts, environmental justice.


2020 ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Joanna Klimowicz

XXI wiek przyczynił się do rozwoju nowych, innowacyjnych technologii w wielu dziedzinach życia, m.in. w medycynie, lotnictwie, inżynierii molekularnej czy budownictwie. Współczesne technologie rozwijają się bardzo szybko, przynosząc rozmaite udogodnienia współczesnym człowiekowi. Jednakże XXI wiek przyniósł nam też niszczycielskie działanie narastających anomalii pogodowych związanych z pogłębiającymi się zmianami klimatu. Żyjąc w dobie konsumpcjonizmu, powinniśmy się zastanowić w jaki sposób przyczyniamy się do tego stanu? Czy my współcześnie żyjący możemy wpłynąć na poprawę naszej egzystencji? Czy współcześnie proponowane rozwiązania są w stanie ochronić nas przed wieloma negatywnymi skutkami zmian klimatu? Czy możemy wpłynąć na wzrost zanieczyszczenia powietrza, wzrost temperatury oraz związane z nimi narastające zjawiska takie jak powodzie czy pożary? Mieszkańcy współczesnych miast stykają się z wieloma tymi niedogodnościami. My jako architekci i urbaniści powinniśmy reagować i wprowadzać takie rozwiązania, które będą sprzyjały poprawie warunków życia. Tematem artykuły jest przedstawienie wybranych przykładów rozwiązań zastosowania zieleni, wpływającej na niwelowanie niekorzystnych warunków klimatycznych panujących w miasta. Odpowiednio projektowana zieleń, zarówno w skali urbanistycznej jak i architektonicznej miasta, przyczynia się do niwelowanie Miejskiej Wyspy Ciepła, wpływa na poprawę komfortu zamieszkania, jest stabilizatorem temperatury oraz wilgotności. Badania kamerą termowizyjną wykazują w jaki sposób zastosowanie zieleni przyczynia się do obniżania temperatury w zabudowie śródmiejskiej. Wyniki badań stanowić uzupełnienie prowadzonych analiz związanych z obserwacją zachowań termicznych zabudowy miejskiej. Możliwość odniesienia wyników wpłynie na świadomość mieszkańców jest istotne jest stosowanie odpowiednich materiałów budowalnych oraz zieleni miejskiej jako jednych z elementów poprawiających komfort życia w mieście. The problem of the overheating of twenty-first century cities (UHI) versus greenery The 21st century has contributed to the development of new, innovative technologies in many areas of life, including medicine, aviation, molecular engineering and construction. Modern technologies are developing very quickly, bringing various conveniences to modern man. However, the 21st century has brought us also the destructive effect of growing weather anomalies associated with deepening climate change. Living in the age of consumerism, we should think about how we are contributing to this state? Can we, living today, improve our existence? Can the solutions proposed nowadays protect us from many negative effects of climate change? Can we influence the increase in air pollution, temperature rise and the associated growing phenomena such as floods and fires? Citizens of modern cities are facing many of these inconveniences. We, as architects and urban planners, should react and implement solutions that will improve living conditions. The subject of the articles is to present selected examples of solutions for the use of greenery, which will help to eliminate unfavorable climate conditions in cities. Properly designed greenery, both on the urban and architectural scale of the city, contributes to the leveling of the Urban Heat Island, improves the comfort of living, and is a stabilizer of temperature and humidity. Research with a thermal imaging camera shows how the use of greenery contributes to lowering the temperature in downtown buildings. The results of the research are a supplement to the analyses carried out in connection with the observation of thermal behavior of urban development. The possibility of referencing the results will influence the residents’ awareness. It is important to use appropriate building materials and greenery as one of the elements improving the comfort of living in the city.


Author(s):  
Idowu Biao

This chapter posits that the transformation of ancient African cities into modern cities using the modernist theory of planning did more harm than good. Not only has the modern city created many more urban poor than obtained in ancient cities, but the urban poor also remain the most vulnerable as their livelihoods have often come under threat from not only unfriendly city council regulations but also from the rigid safeguards of the modernist theory of town planning. Consequently, in order to promote the building of human-centered African cities which would serve all those that live in them, it is here suggested that the mystical, humanistic, and spatial values of ancient African cities should be further researched, so as to embed them into the transformation of existing and subsequent African cities.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Davidson

In this paper I argue that an examination of changing patterns of mobility and automobility in contemporary literature can demonstrate ways that literary forms both reflect and produce cultural and social change. Focusing more specifically on automobility in Don DeLillo’s 21st century novel Cosmopolis, I take into account the car as it functions symbolically in the discursive realm with its promises of freedom and liberation, and its part in discourses of power, wealth and the ecological. I also acknowledge the impact of its presence as a material object that operates within global systems of production and consumption and integrated systems of roads. I conclude that the car in DeLillo’s novel not only contains ideas of automobility from the past, but also points the way forward to one future where the relative immobility of the congested automobile is countered by the mobility of the networking functions it contains.


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