Reassembling the politics of “Green” urban redevelopment in East Garfield Park: A Polanyian approach

Abstract

Spotlighting a “green building” project in Chicago (East Garfield Park), this paper explores the various cultural, geographical, and topological factors that serve to pluralize land commodification pathways. Building on the scholarship on rent capture, I re-assemble the politics of green gentrification in East Garfield Park in order to lay bare the dynamic interactions between structure (e.g. financialization of urban space), agency (e.g. expression of needs, purposes, interests), and spatial materiality (e.g. landscapes of built environment). My approach draws on Polanyian geographies, focusing in particular on plural social agencies, the impact of spatial infrastructural configurations on local politics, and the role of narrative/script-making in land development. The resulting conversation entails thicker criticism of municipal planning practices that fail to challenge the foundational assumptions of land market and property economy. Moreover, a number of implications arise from the performative political possibilities of spatial infrastructure: while broader economic structures may constrain the agency of diverse actants, spatial landscapes can nevertheless prove enabling for transformative value politics, with competing narratives on “what is the best use for the land” defying a singular ontology of land as “real-estate-land.”

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