Globeville Landing Park, a newly redesigned green space in Denver. Source: nytimes.com.
Denver, like many American cities, has a history of environmental racism. While the city’s white residents tend to live in areas with trees and parks, African American and Hispanic residents tend to be surrounded by concrete. Furthermore, the effects of summer heat are exacerbated for those marginalized communities due to redlining and other racist policies, which were put into place decades ago. Redlining is the phenomenon by which mortgage lenders segregate urban areas by only offering mortgages to Black and immigrant clients in certain areas, which were often marked with red ink on special maps and had worse living conditions. These redlined zones have very few trees, and therefore have less shade and air filtration. As a result, these neighborhoods consistently rank among the hottest areas in their cities, hurting their primarily African American and Hispanic populations.
In an effort to address Denver’s history of environmental racism, the city has instituted a new environmental tax. It has added more than 10 million dollars to the city budget that could assist these neighborhoods in becoming more “green.” Still, utilizing city funds to plant trees in these areas is more complex than it seems: residents of disadvantaged areas are skeptical of city plans to make their locales green. They worry that the effort to create a “green and clean neighborhood” could be an agent of gentrification, as the greener neighborhood would attract white and wealthy residents and increase rent prices, forcing them out of their own homes and dispersing their community. Since residents of these disadvantaged areas are distrustful of the city’s efforts and intentions to revamp their areas, many of them are joining forces with non-profit organizations to create tree-planting initiatives. If such collaborations are successful, cities such as Detroit may consider following Denver’s example in trying to undo the environmental racism that has damaged disadvantaged neighborhoods for decades.
Comments