The Racial Inequities of Green Gentrification (original) (raw)

This chapter considers the process of green gentrification, focusing on the transformations of the Anacostia River. Many residents remember the Anacostia River as a highly polluted, neglected and segregating river. More recently, however, the river's partial clean-up and revitalization have turned it into a new green icon of the revived U.S. capital. While many see it as a symbol and opportunity for racial reconciliation in the highly segregated "Chocolate City," it also increasingly embodies the traits of a gentrifying and displacing riverfront. 1 Neighborhoods in southeast Washington along the Anacostia River have come to represent two extremes and frontiers: on the one hand, a green and gentrification frontier in the wealthy Navy Yard on the western shore, and on the other, an open frontier on the east shore (Williams 2015). In this chapter, we examine urban redevelopment and greening trends in the east frontier and zoom in on the 11th Street Bridge Park construction project and its surrounding area. Our analysis demonstrates that while this project claims to be equity-driven, it currently fails to fundamentally address the city's historic racial inequality and the erosion of Black land ownership. Furthermore, as the intervention is driven by external corporate and philanthropic interventions, it risks neglecting or undermining longstanding racial justice efforts at the grassroots level and overlooks local calls and mobilization for more abolitionist and emancipatory urban greening practice. Contrasting legacies east and west of the Anacostia River The area east of the Anacostia River, which includes the broader neighborhood of far southeast/southwest, encompassing Historic Anacostia, has traditionally .