Designing for (in)justice requires a rich understanding of how unjust systems and landscapes came to exist in the first place. Socio-ecological systems are not exempt, and in fact much of our understanding, policies, and decision-making regarding urban conservation, resource management, and planning, stem from racialized processes. Our decisions about where amenities/dissamenities are placed and by whom, are informed and driven by perceptions and policies of one dominant racialized group over others. While scholars and activists in Environmental Justice have long understood the relationship between race, racism, and the environment, these ongoing processes are only just evolving into the research practices in ecology, and environmental and earth sciences. Thus, bringing an environmental justice lens in a critical way to assess and evaluate ecological processes, urban planning, and design, empowers us not just to understand why socio-ecological systems are inherently socio-driven-ecologically systems, but how to center justice in our scientific practice and research.
My work examines how the use of an engineering and planning tool called green infrastructure (GI) (aka nature-based solutions aka best-management practices), replicates patterns of infrastructure disinvestment and exclusion despite GI’s desired use and marketing as a means of providing sustainable and resilient solutions aka ecosystem services to all. I define GI as any individual or set of vegetated practices intended to serve a function or benefit. While the benefits and functions have most often meant water quality or quantity, my work expands this to include social and cultural benefits, including how those benefits show up in GI siting. An analysis of GI siting rationale and criteria from 119 planning documents reveals a misalignment between the socio-ecological and sustainability goals being ascribed to GI, and the criteria and metrics used to rank projects and discuss their implementation on the landscape. When combined with a lack of understanding the racialized socio-driven-ecological processes of municipal infrastructure investment, GI becomes the harbinger of outcomes like green gentrification, displacement, and exclusion.
Fortunately, there are ways of considering GI for various benefits and services, while including communities, respecting community sovereignty, and integrating environmental and social justice.
