Understanding Nature in New York City through Gentrification and Environmental Justice By Eana Bacchiocchi
N
ature in New York City seems contradictory. However, if you look closely and think critically, it does exist, sometimes in quite copious amounts. When considering nature in New York City, you need to be creative and think outside of the box. Because in practicality, it is the concrete jungle. There are parts of New York City where blocks are tree-lined and it’s refreshing, and then there are places where you don’t see a tree for blocks upon blocks. Nature appears in small ways in urban areas. They’re not accosting you, up front and center. For the most essential purposes of this essay, I will draw upon Jenny Price’s third and fourth way of seeing nature in urban areas from her Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A. Within New York City, experiencing nature is not equal. Nature for people living across the street from Central Park is very
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Photo by Caio Christofol from Pixels
different for nature for people living in Midtown. There is a disparity across neighborhoods within New York City that benefit the most from nature around them and those who benefit the least from the lack thereof (Price 6). Central Park is within walking distance of some of the wealthiest neighborhoods, whereas if you lived in the South Bronx, the closest public park could be a train ride away. Furthermore, viewing nature as the resources around us, nature is, of course, not equal. The story of how your food traveled from where it was grown, probably hundreds of miles away, to a produce store or perhaps shipped directly to one of the new trendy restaurants in town is nature (Price 5). The many hands that followed the growth and then transportation of the avocado that you just smashed onto your toast is a story of nature. The economic disparity between what the avocado workers get paid to what you paid your avocado smoothie at Avocaderia is a story of natural resource value and economic inequality. Nature is actually quite abundant in New York City: from the resources used to build the incessant high rises to the many or few, depending on the way you view it, parks and recreational spaces around the city, nature exists. And with a city of 8 million people, through the inequality of understanding and experiencing nature, environmental injustice exists.
and climate refugees or impoverished populations facing food insecurity. However, looking inward, to your home, brings a vulnerability to the place you grew up. New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the United States, economically, culturally and ethnically. In a fairly homogeneous body at Colby College, I’m proud to have grown up experiencing an urban lifestyle, in arguably one of the best cities in the United States. The value of growing up in New York City versus a small New England town is almost indescribable and has impacted the way I approach thinking about issues in general and of course, environmental issues. Coming to Colby, my Environmental Studies courses have reiterated and gone into more depth of the environmental issues we face today: climate change, first and foremost, biodiversity loss, water, land, and air pollution, the list is endless. As an Environmental Humanities student, I’m taught to think critically about the way we convey these environmental issues to our peers using the humanities, but also simply the humanitarian aspect of environmental issues defined as environmental justice. Now, taking a piece of my New Yorker background, through this essay I attempt to explore the link between environmental injustice and gentrification within the city I know and love. Now, New York City is enormous and tackling all instances of environmental When thinking about environmental injustice and gentrification within injustice, it’s easy to see instances of the city is nearly impossible within environmental racism or exclusion the context of this essay. Therefore, across the world with coastal regions I propose for you to accompany
