@article{ref1,
title="Race and the construction of city and nature",
journal="Environment and planning A",
year="2017",
author="Loughran, Kevin",
volume="49",
number="9",
pages="1948-1967",
abstract="Recent scholarship in critical urban theory, urban political ecology, and related fields has emphasized the &quot;hybridity&quot; of urban-environmental systems. This argument is contrasted with the socially constructed &quot;binary&quot; relationship between &quot;city&quot; and &quot;nature&quot; that dominated historical understandings of urban-environmental connections. Despite wide agreement on these issues, the trajectories that precipitated this shift in city-nature boundaries have been understudied. Many explanations position accelerating urbanization or changes in global political economy as driving the decline of the city-nature binary. This paper proposes that this transformation is also a product of the changing cultural and spatial dynamics of &quot;race&quot; between the 19th-century and the present. Drawing on research on urban parks in Chicago, I consider the production of park space at four important historical moments: (1) the mid-to-late 19th-century, when large picturesque parks were built; (2) the early 20th-century, when reform-oriented &quot;small parks&quot; were constructed; (3) the post-World War II period, which was marked by the development of recreation facilities; and (4) the contemporary period, where linear parks like Chicago's 606 (which I term &quot;imbricated spaces&quot;) bring together built and natural environments in new ways. Through this analysis, I argue that the social construction of &quot;city&quot; and &quot;nature,&quot; as spatialized through urban park development, was co-produced with racialized spaces and symbols and contributed to the creation of metropolitan racial boundaries. Further, I argue that historical shifts in these racialized spaces and symbols have been implicated in the weakening of the city-nature binary and the rise of the hybrid city-nature relationship.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0308-518X",
doi="10.1177/0308518X17713995",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X17713995"
}