Class 6. October 2. Layers of regulation 2: environmental challenges (brownfields, sea level rise, Sandy experience, appeal of the waterfront)
Methods: waterfront communities, maritime culture, forecasting climate change, assessing environmental damages.
Due: Working draft of website project
(Friday October 4: field meeting related to brownfields)
Expert: Kara Murphy Schlichting, History Department, Queens College, CUNY
Readings or applications:
Kara Murphy Schlichting, “Working-Class Leisure on the Upper East River and Sound,” chap. 3 in New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019).
Alan Weisman, “Burning Down the House,” New York Review of Books, August 15, 2019, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/08/15/climate-change-burning-down-house/. (Review of David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (Tim Duggan Books, 2019) and Bill McKibben Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2019).
Melissa Checker, 2015. “Green is the New Brown: ‘Old School Toxics’ and Environmental Gentrification on a New York City Waterfront,” in Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice, Cindy Isenhour, Gary McDonogh, and Melissa Checker (Editors) Cambridge University Press, pp. 157-179.
Jessica Ty Miller, 2016. “Is urban greening for everyone? Social inclusion and exclusion along the Gowanus Canal,” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 19(1):285-294.
Elizabeth A. Harris, “In Brooklyn, Worrying About Not Only Flooding but Also What’s in the Water,” New York Times, Nov. 5, 2012.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/under-trump-great-gowanus-canal-superfund-cleanup-gets-more-uncertain/
Additional resources:
https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0206222 (Gowanus Canal superfund site)
US EPA, Gowanus Canal, Superfund Site Profile (Gowanus Canal cleanup activities)
US EPA, What Is Superfund? (Explains the Superfund program)
The readings this week brought to mind a number of political-ecological reflections in relation to Gowanus. These have to do with the nature of the contradiction between capitalism and the environment and the sorts of social conflicts that this contradiction engenders.
The Gowanus Canal – not unlike the Upper East River and the North Shore of Staten Island – provides an instance of what has been referred to as “the second contradiction of capitalism.” Capitalism, theorists of the second contradiction argue, inherently operates to undermine its own external, in this case environmental conditions. The drive for accumulation, in a context of the ubiquitous capitalist competition, leads individual capitalists to exploit, commodify, and thereby degrade the environment, and simultaneously to avoid the outlays, direct and through taxation, that are necessary to maintain and reproduce it. The contradiction, then, involves a tendency toward crises of underproduction, capitalism produces – contra Malthusian and neoclassical naturalizations of this phenomenon – forms of specifically capitalist scarcity.
Gowanus, the Upper East River, and the North Shore of Staten Island illustrate this process in partial, small-scale form. There, development produced a scarcity of some of the environmental conditions – such as clean waters, soil, and air – that underpin exchange and use value in leisure and residential economies. Theorists of the second contradiction argue that these outcomes are not only inherent to capitalism, but that they invoke characteristic progressive identities and political conflicts, which are discernible in contemporary New York City politics.
In the North Shore, for instance, as related by Checker, the unhealthy effects of a toxified environment brought a number of community activists and groups together to compel local, state, and federal authorities to remediate on social terms. These people seem acutely attuned to the second contradiction. Further development, for them, represents not only a diversion of attention and resources but also a likely exacerbation of the problem. Arrayed against them are interests in and around the administration of the City of New York. Bloomberg’s administration argued, instead, implicitly, that the second contradiction is defeasible, indeed that capitalist development was the best way to fund the remediation of the environment. Checker comes down on the side of the activists. She shows that Bloomberg’s approach involved the marginalization of the community and the ascendance of considerations of profit over and above those of environmental sustainability. In other words, she shows that the contradiction is a hard and relatively indefeasible one.
Gowanus is perhaps a more complex case. Miller reports that some residents would prefer that the area not be remediated, because of a desire for industrial jobs or because of fears of displacement by the resulting influx of gentrifiers. Some activists, such as those in the Friends and Residents Of Greater Gowanus, want environmental remediation, but in ways that exclude capitalist development. Others see development as a fait accompli and hope only to shape it. Government, on the other hand, has brought to bear a variant of “Bloombergian” ecological capitalism. The Superfund legislation, for instance, aims to make past polluters pay for environmental remediation. These polluters, obviously, work hard to avoid that. De Blasio’s administration aims to marry capitalism not only to environmental but also to more social concerns, with requirements in developments for forms of social housing. Checker would no doubt have concerns about whether such unions are viable ones.
In any case, any analysis of community power in this area, will need to take into account these sorts of partly ecologically-derived cleavages. I’d keep this in mind for later comments.
I always find the nexus of urban life and environmental challenges fascinating. In many ways, the urban can be seen as a human triumph over nature. Yet, environmental concerns threaten the livelihoods and housing of urban dwellers, in particular for those who live along coastlines. In her account of the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Harris reports on the impact of the Gowanus Canal flooding where basements were overflowing with oily toxic waste water. While residents of Gowanus have been aware that they live in close proximity to a toxic waste site (the stench of the Canal itself provides enough clues), I don’t think any of them ever imagined that the toxic Canal would end up in their basement! The aftermath of Superstorm Sandy highlighted the deficient infrastructure of the Gowanus Canal, especially when it is overflooded from heavy rain water and sewage overflow. It’s not clear how much money and resources are being spent by developers to address this particular infrastructure problem in the new rezoning plans but this is clearly a major priority.
I was particularly interested in Miller’s piece on social inclusion and exclusion in the decision making process for the redevelopment plans for Gowanus. First, I’m curious about her methods – did she randomly show up at people’s doors to interview them? If so, did she show up at different times of the day in order to catch a varied sample? What her piece highlights is not just the decisions made among those who are most vocal, but also the “non-decisions” made based on the absence of voices who might have advocated for changes (such as not cleaning up the Canal) counter to those who were most involved.
Although I was mostly convinced by Checker’s argument that “economic interests are pursued at the expense of environmental and public health” when tying the cleanup of toxic sites to real estate interests I can also understand the rationale from the perspective of the Bloomberg administration in its decision to assign the implementation of environmental policies to private developers. The success of urban sustainability plans rest upon the ability of the city to link sustainably driven policies to functions that lie within the legal authority of its governance. While mayors can make sustainability a vital goal of their administration, it is not a goal that necessarily fits within the legal authority of the city. Therefore, linking sustainability to economic development is a means for city governments to include sustainability planning into a principal function of local government. Within this framework, mayoral economic development powers include: zoning, building codes, the implementation of tax-based economic development incentives, purchasing, infrastructure construction through the capital budget and deployment of city assets ranging from police to parks.
I am by no means claiming that engaging the business sector is the only strategy to successfully creating and implementing sustainable policies. Inter-governmental agency cooperation and government leadership in promoting, overseeing and implementing the policies is foundational. The role of the business sector in the planning and implementation of sustainability plans is an essential resource and a means to the success of a sustainable city, and is complementary to the leadership of government agencies charged with integrating sustainability into their programs.
This week’s readings presented valuable discussions of mixed methods approaches in complicating the political dynamics at play in Gowanus and critically introducing the “elephant in the room,” like Marta so aptly called out: the environmental crisis of at the intersection of development and community in Gowanus. The articles fell into a pattern too of treating NYCHA as an afterthought: the descriptions lacked the complexities of key groups that Dave Briggs described. In one of the interviews, describing efforts to bring all members of the commuinty into planning discussions, one respondent describes: “The public housing people stopped coming. The Red hook people have been only sort of engaged” (Miller 2016, 290-1). This respondents’ characterization frames the NYCHA communities as separate from the rest of the residential stakeholders, and places the blame of the absence of public housing participation on the residents themselves, without a meaningful acknowledgement of the barriers to participation that may prevent them from attending a meeting or otherwise staying engaged. The issue of “abandonment” and “busy work” that Checker introduces in the case of the North Shore on Staten Island is also definitely at play in the Gowanus case, too: how does the city expect (and do they even want) a community, who has seen so little care and so much disinvestment over the 20th century, to think their voices will make a difference now? In a community engagement process around brownfields and EPA Superfunds that both Miller and Checker describe as “cliquey” and exclusive (Miller 290), even “tokenistic” (Checker 167).
These gaps and very real limits of meaningful participation in planning lead me to think about our class’s contributions for the semester and how to add value to a crowded circle of interested parties.
With each week’s readings and meetings, we have a greater understanding of the question of the proposed rezoning, pending redevelopment, and community that is at stake of disruption. Building on Miller’s discussion of the search for “stability” at various levels of the community, she invokes the idea of “social fabric” of the neighborhood (Miller 2016, 292). The use of the term “social fabric” makes me think of a quotation from Herman Jessor, the architect behind massive redevelopment (like Co-Op City and the Seward Park Co-Ops) in the 1960s. Responding to critiques of his modernist style urban renewal of the tenements on the LES, he counters by saying the “social fabric” preservationists seek to maintain “never existed,” to protest of the mobilization of nostalgia to prevent redevelopment. The reality, of course, is more complicated than both sides admit, but both sides of this argument reappear in Checker’s chapter and as we heard in our meeting with Brad Lander.
I think a real way we could contribute as we build our website would be to counter attitudes in our conversation Brad Lander that there was/is no one/thing there to displace, while also suggesting meaningful changes that would benefit the most people without falling into the risk of environmental gentrification. As Check defines it, environmental gentrification “serves a neoliberal order in which governments fail to address citizens’ most basic needs in order to subsidize the financial sector and take on grandiose projects designed to attract global capital” (Checker 159). Where are the ordinary sites of socializing and community making in Gowanus, and which stakeholder groups do these represent? How can we illustrate the sites of commonplace community engagement, and add layers to the power map of decision-making in Gowanus? Which groups are more at risk of losing stability in the proposed changes, and what steps should the city and developers take to address hazardous environmental realities, and the issue that Miller keeps coming back to: “greening” of the Gowanus is not necessary best for everyone.
This is the week I find profound gratitude to have not lived in the area yet during Hurricane Sandy. What a mess. This week’s readings really lay out the tensions that have arisen between environmental interests and real estate industry interests, but also tensions between overlapping environmental challenges. The Checker piece highlights these tensions with appreciated nuance, especially in the exploration of how environmental justice rhetoric and concerns were co-opted by real estate. As urban farms and community gardens have become almost memes of gentrification (see Detroit), I’ve been puzzled as to how to reconcile the cultural and class issues they represent with their ultimately progressive, often not-profit-seeking endeavors.
From our conversations in class and with Dave Briggs, I was starting to question the premise of the cleanup at all (understanding that’s moot given the superfund designation). Considering the scope of infrastructural problems the area faces, to what end are major resources being put towards the canal cleanup? Well, not having sludge coming onto the streets and into homes in a flooding event like Sandy is a pretty good end. Alas. How does one prioritize here? Looking at the city as a whole, one could consider affordable housing as a type of infrastructure, but considering the majority of housing in Gowanus will be luxury, how does that fit into the picture? These developments ultimately strain the infrastructure in order to fund it, while relying on the promises of improved infrastructure (incl. the cleanup) to increase property values, as we learned from last week’s presentation.
Given the environmental, brown or green, challenges, I’m curious what would a Gowanus plan look like under the umbrella of the Green New Deal. How might a federal policy direct these questions of prioritization? How would they differ in urban vs. non-urban areas? Infrastructure is talked about as a sort of separate policy issue, but it would be part of the core of the Green New Deal. I would be curious to see how the thinkers behind it would tackle Gowanus if they could start the process from scratch.
This is the week I find profound gratitude to have not lived in the area yet during Hurricane Sandy. What a mess. This week’s readings really lay out the tensions that have arisen between environmental interests and real estate industry interests, but also tensions between overlapping environmental challenges. The Checker piece highlights these tensions with appreciated nuance, especially in the exploration of how environmental justice rhetoric and concerns were co-opted by real estate. As urban farms and community gardens have become almost memes of gentrification (see Detroit), I’ve been puzzled as to how to reconcile the cultural and class issues they represent with their ultimately progressive, often not-profit-seeking endeavors.
From our conversations in class and with Dave Briggs, I was starting to question the premise of the cleanup at all (understanding that’s moot given the superfund designation). Considering the scope of infrastructural problems the area faces, to what end are major resources being put towards the canal cleanup? Well, not having sludge coming onto the streets and into homes in a flooding event like Sandy is a pretty good end. Alas. How does one prioritize here? Looking at the city as a whole, one could consider affordable housing as a type of infrastructure, but considering the majority of housing in Gowanus will be luxury, how does that fit into the picture? These developments ultimately strain the infrastructure in order to fund it, while relying on the promises of improved infrastructure (incl. the cleanup) to increase property values, as we learned from last week’s presentation.
Given the environmental, brown or green, challenges, I’m curious what would a Gowanus plan look like under the umbrella of the Green New Deal. How might a federal policy direct these questions of prioritization? How would they differ in urban vs. non-urban areas? Infrastructure is talked about as a sort of separate policy issue, but it would be part of the core of the Green New Deal. I would be curious to see how the thinkers behind it would tackle Gowanus if they could start the process from scratch.
Two insights from this week’s readings return me to the tension (and somewhat false dichotomy) between the planner’s “expert on the Public interest” perspective va the local group’s community-grounded “local interest”. That (1) some Gowanus residents prefer no remediation (out of reasonable concern that cleanup will unsettle the socioeconomics of the neighborhood to make it unaffordable to them) and (2) the difficulty of and often non-participation by certain community groups and interests in the planning decision process (those who are least able to participate tending to be the ones most likely to be adversely impacted by the proposed planning change). The process put pressure on those least able to participate despite being most likely to be harmed, and, when they are able to voice their position, to make one that is rational only in an extremely narrow sense and due mainly to their underprivileged and vulnerable socioeconomic position. Even from a purely economic standpoint, it is a suboptimal situation – voting against remediation of a known toxic site very close to one’s residence when such toxic materials have (during Sandy) and will contaminate (in predictable future superstorms). There was a need to broaden the “level” of “interest” in planning that was behind the early 20th century rise of planning after NYC’s consolidation. It is a greater challenge today because the cost of “greening” is high and the extreme affordability crisis (much less “win win” and more and more “a few win while many lose”) reduce the capacity of the least well-positioned to contribute to a satisfactory outcome.