Journal article
Cultivating a Politics of Sight for Vacant Land Use in Cities
Anthropological quarterly, v 95(2), pp 387-415
Mar 2022
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Perceptions of vacant urban land and resulting policies are based in nature/ culture dualisms that condemn abandoned properties as wasteful at best and at worst outright dangerous for communities. Decades of research on urban vacancy reinforce these perceptions, with findings showing higher crime rates, lower property values, and poorer mental health in communities with high rates of vacancy. These established paradigms for thinking about vacant land obscure any benefits that such spaces have while also justifying gentrification. In this essay, we suggest there is more than meets the eye in common assessments of vacant lots. Biodiversity, ecosystem services, and informal community land use are all routinely overlooked in municipal decision-making processes. Using photographs from a pilot field study on ecological health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we advance a politics of sight that reframes overlooked features of abandoned properties. Rather than approaching urban vacancy as a problem to be addressed through development, we argue that vacant land is a problem-space with potential for transformation already contained within it.
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Details
- Title
- Cultivating a Politics of Sight for Vacant Land Use in Cities
- Creators
- Ali Kenner - Drexel Univ, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USAEliza Nobles - Univ Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USASarah Stalcup - James Madison University
- Publication Details
- Anthropological quarterly, v 95(2), pp 387-415
- Publisher
- George Washington Univ Inst Ethnographic Research
- Number of pages
- 30
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Politics; Drexel University; Center for Science, Technology, and Society
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000823738600006
- Other Identifier
- 991021861200704721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Anthropology