Please join us TODAY for our PSRG Network Event, Residents’ feelings towards park renovations in low-income gentrifying neighborhoods: Latest findings of an ethnographic study in NYC, presented by Javier Otero Peña.
Everyone deserves access to parks of quality. In an effort to make cities more just, local authorities in many cities around the world are investing in public spaces in neglected, low-income and highly dense neighborhoods. However, studies show that such investments may contribute to increasing land values and rents (Crompton, 2005), and as a paradoxical consequence, population in these areas shifts, and the low-income residents for whom the renovations were intended end up displaced to other areas of the city (Gould & Lewis, 2017). It is unclear whether this threat of displacement is known by residents, and whether the degree of gentrification in the area changes how residents perceive park renovations and investment in their neighborhoods. Do they welcome the changes or are they wary of improvements allegedly intended for them? This study is an ethnography of parks renovated in low-income gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City, from an urban environmental justice perspective. Using Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedures (Low et al., 2005), residents and users of four parks in minority-majority neighborhoods at different stages of gentrification were interviewed about their feelings towards renovations and neighborhood change itself, with an emphasis on procedural and interactional justice, and on identifying potential mixed feelings.
Event information
Friday, April 9, 2021 / 12p ET / On the Web
Zoom Registration Link
https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0scOyorjMpHtDHVY_E8_QM_2C0_-v9Xqh4
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
