Geography 595

Concrete and Clay December 11, 2008

Gandy provides an enjoyable story filled with interesting historical accounts of the continuously shifting political, economic, and social forces that produce both symbolic and material forms of nature.  Primacy is clearly placed on water for its obvious life-sustaining qualities as the opening chapter sets the tone for the remainder of the book with discussion of how nature can become many different things and be interpreted many ways based on the power structure in place.  I found the story of New York’s continued expansion of its’ ‘ecological frontier’ to be particularly interesting as it stepped-out further and further for more (and cleaner) resources in response to the overwhelming growth of the city’s population.  We see a return to the ‘ecological frontier’ notion later in the book in regards to the seeking out of new (and less politically contested) space for waste disposal.  This reminded me of the ‘ecological footprint’ idea and how this is similar in the way it grows in spatial extent as the urban grows. 

Through a discussion of Central Park’s initial development and usage, Gandy provides an interesting example of how power plays into the socially produced material and symbolic forms of nature.  It is an historical account that plays out as much today in admittedly smaller forms, but the contestation over what nature is or what it should be and for whom it should be produced is constantly playing out across the ‘greening’ cities of today.  Gandy focuses partially on the role of the middle-class not only in shaping the production of nature (parks) in the city but also returns to this idea of ‘middle-class militancy’ later in the book when he discusses the divide between environmental justice movements seen as more radical and the environmentalism movement often comprised of white middle to upper-class citizens. 

As you can imagine, I was very interested in the chapters regarding environmental justice and trash given not only my research interests but also the recent discussions of trash (Sarah Moore’s Oaxac article).  I wonder if someone in Oaxaca knew about the Young Lords’ organized trash barricades!  Again we see examples of not only how environmental justice movements begin to form but also how they often expand their agendas from more than a simple protest or reaction to a particular environmental ‘event’ if you will.  Gandy well-illustrated how so often it is concerns of residents regarding their health and that of their children which provide the impetus for social activism.  The civil rights movement also provided the inspiration and early templates for meaningful activism.  We see in the community of Greenpoint-Williamsburg how such health concerns and long-running perceptions of injustice contributed to the ability of heretofore disparate and divided communities to come together as a unified opposition.  Such environmental justice movements often have deeper goals than preventing one facility being sited near their community.  As Gandy illustrated, their concerns and goals stretched to desires for a greater ability to dictate how their space or community is developed and utilized.  The role of place attachment is enormous in such movements as more recent environmental justice research has shown (Kurtz in particular).

I enjoyed this book quite a bit for the above-mentioned reasons, but I still feel as if there was not as in-depth a treatment of what nature is doing throughout all of these years as perhaps there could be.  As Erin mentioned in her post, perhaps the lack of such treatment by so many is simply the enormous challenges of taking on such a task and avoiding the nature/society duality.  However, Gandy did provide interesting and useful discussion of how social relations produce different material and symbolic forms of nature, I didn’t see much of any examination of how the nonhuman acts or responds to these social relations.