{"id":46758,"date":"2021-06-07T17:19:58","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T21:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=46758"},"modified":"2025-06-27T12:52:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T16:52:04","slug":"beyond-equity-what-does-an-anti-racist-urban-ecology-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2021\/06\/07\/beyond-equity-what-does-an-anti-racist-urban-ecology-look-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond equity: What does an anti-racist urban ecology look like?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors in This Roundtable<\/h3>\n
Julian Agyeman, Medford<\/a> Two fundamental \u201crecognitions\u201d before we can move forward: (1) we must recognize and acknowledge, openly, that in the U.S., we are on stolen land; (2) Second, we must recognize and acknowledge, openly, that in the U.S., urban planning is the spatial toolkit for articulating, implementing, and maintaining White Supremacy.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Isabelle Anguelovski, Barcelona<\/a> Decolonizing green city planning would involve prioritizing land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and developing new land arrangements as necessary to an environmentally just landscape.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Anna Livia Brand, Berkeley<\/a> Decolonizing green city planning would involve prioritizing land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and developing new land arrangements as necessary to an environmentally just landscape.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Jean-Marie Cishahayo, Ottawa<\/a> Les dimensions spatiales, sociales et \u00e9conomiques de l’inclusion urbaine sont \u00e9troitement li\u00e9es et ont tendance \u00e0 se renforcer mutuellement. Sur un chemin n\u00e9gatif, ces facteurs interagissent pour pi\u00e9ger les gens dans la pauvret\u00e9 et la marginalisation. En sens inverse, ils peuvent sortir les gens de l’exclusion et am\u00e9liorer leur vie.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Jean-Marie Cishahayo, Ottawa<\/a> The spatial, social, and economic dimensions of urban inclusion are tightly intertwined and tend to reinforce each other. On a negative path, these factors interact to trap people into poverty and marginalization. Working in the opposite direction, they can lift people out of exclusion and improve lives.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
CJ Goulding, Teaneck<\/a> While we recognize what needs to be done, it will not be easy, and we will face pushback and resistance from those who would like to see things remain as they have been.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Morgan Grove, Baltimore<\/a> An \u201canti-\u201d urban ecology is more than social interactions and ecological thinking. An \u201canti-\u201c urban ecology is to understand and act upon how these institutionalized systems alter the ecologies and interactions of species, populations, communities, landscapes, and ecosystems at local, regional, and global scales.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Derek Hyra, Washington<\/a> Decolonizing green city planning would involve prioritizing land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and developing new land arrangements as necessary to an environmentally just landscape.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Laura Landau, New York<\/a> Real transformation only happens when we examine issues of ownership and control in order to radically redistribute power. The good news is that many environmental groups are already showing us how to take these steps.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Mar\u00eda Mej\u00eda, Bogot\u00e1<\/a> Cali\u2019s urban natures mirror deep wounds of racism and colonialism. Its urban development in the 20th<\/sup> Century was embedded in historical dynamics of labor exploitation and the trade of goods and commodities. The historical concentration of land by elites made of Cali a highly segregated city: it was a radicalization of space.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Polly Moseley, Liverpool<\/a> Solidarity and justice are meaningful to the struggles which the people of Liverpool have felt as a city. Where we have sown wildflowers on public land threatened with building projects the wildflowers have been particularly welcomed by local activist groups and residents; we find more homegrown social innovation and receptiveness to change in these spaces.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Amanda K. Phillips de Lucas, Baltimore<\/a> As we plot out the path towards the anti-racist city, we must simultaneously amend the practices and procedures that have burdened others. We must begin to see the tools of our professions as enmeshed within multiple systems and structures. What we understand as a best practice may also result in the worst possible outcome for a community.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Steward T.A. Pickett, Poughkeepsie<\/a> Critical race theory has suggested sequential steps that urban ecology must use to contribute to just and equitable cities, towns, and regions: (1) Awareness of how racism shapes places; (2) Acknowledgement that racism evolves; (3) Inclusion of marginalized communities in research; (4) Embedding of anti-racist praxis in core philosophies. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Charles Pompeh, Accra<\/a> There is a complex inter-mesh of racism, socio-political, and economic injustice that accounts for environmental degradation in Africa, all with colonial origins. Lands in Africa became the property of Europeans, with Africans enduring all forms of brutality. It must now be de-colonized.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Malini Ranganathan, Washington<\/a> Decolonizing green city planning would involve prioritizing land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and developing new land arrangements as necessary to an environmentally just landscape.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Baixo Ribeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a> A\u00a0hist\u00f3ria\u00a0da\u00a0resist\u00eancia\u00a0das\u00a0popula\u00e7\u00f5es\u00a0ind\u00edgenas no Brasil \u00e9\u00a0uma\u00a0hist\u00f3ria\u00a0de\u00a0luta\u00a0para\u00a0manter\u00a0as\u00a0suas\u00a0terraspermanentemente\u00a0assediadas\u00a0por\u00a0um\u00a0capitalismo desmedido e financiado pela\u00a0ind\u00fastria\u00a0global.\u00a0Min\u00e9rios, madeira, petr\u00f3leo\u00a0s\u00e3o\u00a0os\u00a0nossos\u00a0piores\u00a0inimigos\u00a0e os consumidores do mundo todo\u00a0s\u00e3o\u00a0respons\u00e1veis.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Baixo Ribeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a> The history of resistance of indigenous peoples in Brazil is a history of struggle to keep their lands, which are permanently besieged by rampant capitalism.\u00a0Minerals, timber, and oil are our worst enemies. Consumers worldwide are directly responsible.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Amrita Sen, Bangalore<\/a> Environmental organizations have to bear larger accountabilities towards protection of marginal urban communities, not only during incidences of risk but also when environmental management and its related implementation at all levels appear discriminatory and\/or racist.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Sun\u00e9 Stassen, Cape Town<\/a> We at Open Design Afrika believe that collaborative Creative Intelligence is a SUPER POWER! We also believe that every child and citizen should have the right to develop it and be empowered to confidently contribute to the future-making of a world we can ALL feel proud to live, work and play in.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Abdallah Tawfic, Cairo<\/a> Women\u2019s experiences and perceptions of public spaces di\ufb00er to men and it is important to take these differences into account when planning and designing spaces. By applying an intersectional gender lens, women\u2019s specific experiences, needs, and concerns can inform the development of safe and inclusive public spaces.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Cindy Thomashow, Seattle<\/a> Natural systems are putty in the hands of city planners and the wealthy. Intentional inequities, more frequently than not, shape cities. UEE builds the leadership skills that support change-making focused on fairness, equity and justice.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Hita Unnikrishnan, Bangalore<\/a> Environmental organizations have to bear larger accountabilities towards protection of marginal urban communities, not only during incidences of risk but also when environmental management and its related implementation at all levels appear discriminatory and\/or racist.[\/<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Ebony Walden, Richmond<\/a> We need more planners, environmentalists, institutional and civic leaders, across races and with a broad intersection of identities committed to confronting racism in urban ecology in an ongoing, diligent, and vigilant fashion to disrupt the status quo of white supremacy.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Ibrahim Wallee, Accra<\/a> There is a complex inter-mesh of racism, socio-political, and economic injustice that accounts for environmental degradation in Africa, all with colonial origins. Lands in Africa became the property of Europeans, with Africans enduring all forms of brutality. It must now be de-colonized.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Diane Wiesner, Bogot\u00e1<\/a> Nos preguntamos d\u00f3nde y en cu\u00e1ntas calles de las urbes colombianas rendimos tributo a nuestros paisajes, a los pueblos originarios o a los ind\u00edgenas? Nuestras plazas est\u00e1n repletas de monumentos de una Espa\u00f1a que arras\u00f3 con poblaciones y ecosistemas. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Diane Wiesner, Bogot\u00e1<\/a> Let us ask: where, and in how many streets of Colombian cities do we pay tribute to our landscapes, native peoples, or indigenous people? Our plazas are full of monuments to a Spain that razed populations and ecosystems.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n
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David Maddox<\/div>\n
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about the writer
\n David Maddox<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director. David's dad told him once that he needed a back up plan, something to \"fall back on\". So he bought a tuba.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

There has been a growing belief in the need for \u201cequity\u201d in how we build urban environments. The inequities have long been clear<\/a>, but remain largely unsolved in environmental justice: both environmental \u201cbads\u201d (e.g. pollution) and \u201cgoods\u201d (parks, food, ecosystem services of various kinds, livability) tend to be inequitably distributed. Such problems exist around the world, from New York to Mumbai, from Brussels to Rio de Janeiro to Lagos. Indeed, among many there is a sense that \u201cequity\u201d is not enough. Perhaps we need a more active expression of the social and environmental struggles that that underlie issues of equity and inequity in environmental justice and urban ecologies: one that is explicitly \u201canti-racist\u201d, and which recognizes and tries to dismantle the systemic foundations of the inequities.<\/p>\n

There is a logical resonance of this idea to a wide variety of identities, histories, prejudices, and processes that systematically exclude and discriminate among people, including (but sadly not limited to) colonialism, social caste, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and indigeneity.<\/p>\n

So, let us try to imagine approaches beyond the mere basics of equity. What would an anti-racist (or de-colonial or anti-caste, and so on) approach to \u201curban ecologies\u201d be? How would it be accomplished? Is it an approach that would create progress? How would it integrate social and ecological pattern and process? How would we as professionals and concerned urban residents engage with it?<\/p>\n

These conversations must be about social issues as much as ecological ones. Light needs be shined in all directions.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

We must be fiercely honest with ourselves by shining lights into the patterns and limitations \u2014 yes, the stubborn prejudices \u2014 of our own professions. What can we do as individuals? How can we nudge our disciplines \u2014 ecology, or planning, or architecture, or policymaking, or educations, or civil society, or whatever \u2014 in better directions?<\/p>\n

And we must also move towards articulating what we are for<\/span> and activate ourselves and our professions towards change that supports these things; not be satisfied with merely railing at what we are against.<\/p>\n

What actions we will take to make cities that are truly better for everyone?<\/p>\n

Banner image: Greenpop, Cape Town<\/em>
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 <\/p>\n

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Mar\u00eda M\u00e9jia<\/h3>\n
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Mar\u00eda Mej\u00eda<\/div>\n
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about the writer
\n Mar\u00eda Mej\u00eda<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

My heart is scattered across Colombia, Germany, the United States. and the Philippines. I have worked with incredible teams (Asian Development Bank, German Cooperation Agency, PIK Institute, etc.). Now back home, I'm currently leading the BiodiverCities by 2030 Initiative at the Humboldt Institute of Colombia. Editor of Urban Nature: Platform of Experiences (2016) and Transforming Cities with Biodiversity (2022). Volunteer at Fundaci\u00f3n Cerros de Bogot\u00e1. Friend of TNOC since 2013. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

Live now! Claiming back the right to the city: A tale from Colombia\u2019s streets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cali\u2019s urban natures mirror deep wounds of racism and colonialism. Its urban development in the 20th<\/sup> Century was embedded in historical dynamics of labor exploitation and the trade of goods and commodities. The historical concentration of land by elites made of Cali a highly segregated city: it was a radicalization of space.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m writing this short article with a heavy heart. I received this invitation from TNOC in the midst of social unrest in our country. Unexpectedly, the tax reform presented to Congress on 15 April 2021, was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. The national strike on April 28th<\/sup> in opposition to this tax reform revived a social mobilization from November 21st<\/sup> of 2019, known as N21. Back then, the massive general strike was a response to shortages in public education expenses, but it was soon fueled by structural issues dealing with inequality, violence, oppression, poverty, and unemployment, especially youth unemployment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
LEFT: With signs and barricades, people re-signified Puerto Resistencia’s public space, formerly known as Puerto Relleno, a low income neighborhood in Eastern Cal\u00ed. Photo: @InvisiblesMuros. RIGHT: Call, the resistance capital. Photo: @Keos36<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This time the epicenter is the city of Cali, referred to these days as the Resistance Capital or Capital de la resistencia<\/em>. A few public spaces in the city were even renamed by urban dwellers in light of the dynamics of rallies and meeting points, for instance, The Hill of Dignity (Loma de la Dignidad<\/em>) or Port Resistance[i]<\/a>(Puerto Resistencia)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Monday, 5 May 2021: Independent press[ii]<\/a> and human rights NGOs<\/a> report 19 people shot to death in Cali, presumably by police and military forces. The victims were not performing life-threatening acts, some were singing harangues, and some were just walking back home or strolling along the grass. These violent and difficult circumstances in Cali but also those reported in the cities of Pereira, Barranquilla, Neiva, Popay\u00e1n, Pasto, Gachanzip\u00e1, Madrid and Bogot\u00e1[iii]<\/a> \u00a0explain my heavy heart.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Police’s Comandos de Atenci\u00f3n Inmediata (CAI, mini police stations) now turned into pubic libraries. The walls display the names of people presumably shot to death by police officers. Puerto Resistencia, Cal\u00ed. Photo: @InvisiblesMuros<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A low heat situation soon to turn into fire<\/strong><\/p>\n

But why Cali? Why this green and blue heaven, blessed by the majesty of the Andes mountain range to the west and the Cauca River[iv]<\/a> to the east? In 2019, Cali was better off than the national average in terms of unemployment, so what made this happen? The impact of COVID-19 in livelihoods? Young people looking for opportunities who are neither studying nor working<\/a> (“ninis” from the Spanish phrase \u201cni estudia ni trabaja\u201d)? A struggle for the right to the city? A historical segregation pattern? All of the above?<\/p>\n

Cali holds the largest afro-descendant population nationwide and it probably holds the second place in Latin America, after Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. By the mid-60s Cali became a receptor city of displaced communities forced to flee their villages due to our armed conflict, both afro and indigenous communities.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Cali\u2019s urban natures mirror deep wounds of racism and colonialism. Cali\u2019s urban development in the 20th<\/sup> Century was embedded in historical dynamics of labor exploitation and the trade of goods and commodities. The historical concentration of land by elites undoubtedly made of Cali a highly segregated city in the 21st<\/sup> Century. This is what Professor Luis Carlos Castillo called the \u201cRacialization\u201d (racializaci\u00f3n<\/em>) of the space, the localization of poor classes in high-risk areas in the periphery of Cali[v]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The threat of mass movements in the slopes of Cali to the west are classified as \u201cHigh risk (not mitigable)\u201d, \u201cMedium risk (mitigable)\u201d and \u201cLow risk (mitigable)\u201d. On the other hand, the threat of river flood is significant along the plains to the east of Cali).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Protests in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, May 2021. Photos: @laorejaroja<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beyond equity: Power relations and urban natures<\/strong><\/p>\n

How are we\u2014as sustainability practitioners or urban ecologists\u2014engaging with notions of equity and social-environmental justice? Are we understanding equity as the fair access to markets with restrictive rights and access or (more complex notions related to) the devolution of rights and empowerment? In other words, are we understanding equity and social-environmental justice as the fair access to green areas or as the need of reshaping power relations in cities and political revindication of the powerless?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say \u201cdistributing\u201d nature on equal basis may be the last film of the \u201cJust and Green Cities\u201d Trilogy. In line with notions of equity and social-environmental justice, the first movie will probably need to make explicit the idea that cities are highly contested spaces, where social groups strive to conquer the portion of land which can render the highest profit on capital investment[vi]<\/a>. The second film could then reflect on Who is to decide what and how <\/em>in cities? Whose voices are listened when it comes to protect urban natures? Whether an urban wetland should be kept as an ecological and social spot or transformed to give way to transport infrastructure expansion? Who is waving each of these narratives? Which groups are enjoying the right to the city? How race, class, and gender play a role in this political participation? Finally, the closing film could touch upon distribution of and access to urban natures by exploring the role of urban design or the so-called Nature-Based Solutions to tackle access-related challenges.<\/p>\n

Closing thoughts from my own limitations and aspirations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe any post addressing the relationship between racism, colonialism, and the city may start by acknowledging one\u2019s limitations and inherited comfort. More than pinning down a reason to explain why Cali is the epicenter these days, in what follows I share my closing thoughts as a mestizo<\/em> woman born in Bogota, in a privilege circle and with a sincere will of decentralizing my ways of knowing. What is happening in Cali makes me draw these preliminary ideas:<\/p>\n