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A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first
century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an
urban past into distinctive public spaces that meld repurposed
infrastructure, wild-looking green space, and landscape
architecture. For their proponents, they present an opportunity to
turn disused areas into neighborhood anchors, with a host of
environmental and community benefits. Yet there are clear economic
motives as well-successful parks have helped generate billions of
dollars of city tax revenues and real estate development. Kevin
Loughran explores the High Line in New York, the Bloomingdale
Trail/606 in Chicago, and Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston to offer a
critical perspective on the rise of the postindustrial park. He
reveals how elites deploy the popularity and seemingly benign
nature of parks to achieve their cultural, political, and economic
goals. As urban economies have become restructured around finance,
real estate, tourism, and cultural consumption, parks serve as
civic shields for elite-oriented investment. Tracing changing ideas
about cities and nature and underscoring the centrality of race and
class, Loughran argues that postindustrial parks aestheticize past
disinvestment while serving as green engines of gentrification. A
wide-ranging investigation of the political, cultural, and economic
forces shaping park development, Parks for Profit reveals the
social inequalities at the heart of today's new urban landscape.
The High Line, an innovative promenade created on a disused
elevated railway in Manhattan, is one of the world's most iconic
new urban landmarks. Since the opening of its first section in
2009, this unique greenway has exceeded all expectations in terms
of attracting visitors, investment, and property development to
Manhattan's West Side. Frequently celebrated as a monument to
community-led activism, adaptive re-use of urban infrastructure,
and innovative ecological design, the High Line is being used as a
model for numerous urban redevelopment plans proliferating
worldwide. Deconstructing the High Line is the first book to
analyze the High Line from multiple perspectives, critically
assessing its aesthetic, economic, ecological, symbolic, and social
impacts. Including several essays by planners and architects
directly involved in the High Line's design, this volume also
brings together a diverse range of scholars from the fields of
urban studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, and cultural
studies. Together, they offer insights into the project's
remarkable success, while also giving serious consideration to the
critical charge that the High Line is "Disney World on the Hudson,"
a project that has merely greened, sanitized, and gentrified an
urban neighborhood while displacing longstanding residents and
businesses. Deconstructing the High Line is not just for New
Yorkers, but for anyone interested in larger issues of public
space, neoliberal redevelopment, creative design practice, and
urban renewal.
A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first
century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an
urban past into distinctive public spaces that meld repurposed
infrastructure, wild-looking green space, and landscape
architecture. For their proponents, they present an opportunity to
turn disused areas into neighborhood anchors, with a host of
environmental and community benefits. Yet there are clear economic
motives as well-successful parks have helped generate billions of
dollars of city tax revenues and real estate development. Kevin
Loughran explores the High Line in New York, the Bloomingdale
Trail/606 in Chicago, and Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston to offer a
critical perspective on the rise of the postindustrial park. He
reveals how elites deploy the popularity and seemingly benign
nature of parks to achieve their cultural, political, and economic
goals. As urban economies have become restructured around finance,
real estate, tourism, and cultural consumption, parks serve as
civic shields for elite-oriented investment. Tracing changing ideas
about cities and nature and underscoring the centrality of race and
class, Loughran argues that postindustrial parks aestheticize past
disinvestment while serving as green engines of gentrification. A
wide-ranging investigation of the political, cultural, and economic
forces shaping park development, Parks for Profit reveals the
social inequalities at the heart of today's new urban landscape.
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