“‘Place,’” the historian Dolores Hayden has written, “is one of the trickiest words in the English language, a suitcase so overfilled one can never shut the lid. It carries the resonance of homestead, location, and open space in the city as well as a position in a social hierarchy.” Posts in this section follow this social element of physical space, emphasizing questions of meaning and human effort in creating shared (or contested) culturally meaningful space.
Recent Posts
“The Bottom” and Environmental Justice
Throughout American history, economic and social systems relegated communities of color—especially Black communities—to environmentally hazardous urban landscapes. Ujiji Davis’ piece, The Bottom: The Emergence and Erasure of Black American Urban Landscapes, illustrates how the Bottom came to be in states across the country...
Green Gentrification and the Tools to Fight It
Green infrastructure, defined by the American Society of Landscape Architects as using nature as an infrastructural system, is increasingly incorporated into new developments as a means to mitigate and adapt to climate change...
Development without Displacement: A Look at Parks-Related Anti-Displacement Strategies
Cities are greening in response to rising issues related to climate change by creating new parks and green spaces. With this greening comes the concern of ‘green gentrification’ described by Alessandro Rigolon and Jon Christensen...