Charting Environmental Equity: Community Insights Unveil the Impact of Top-Down Green Infrastructure Solutions in an Applied Case Study

Abstract

Amidst changing climate, green infrastructure (GI) is an increasingly essential element of resilient cities. Urban greening and green infrastructure are economically, ecologically, and physiologically beneficial. GI describes practices that use natural systems to capture, clean, and infiltrate stormwater; shade and cool surfaces and buildings; reduce flooding, create wildlife habitat; and provide other services that improve environmental quality and communities’ quality of life. GI and urban greening are deeply political and grounded in technocratic principles. Because GI projects are typically implemented by a county or municipal government, power and politics will control how and where urban greening processes evolve, opening opportunities for further marginalization of communities and the entrenchment of enclaves of environmental privilege. This phenomenon is examined using the theories of feminist political ecology and sensemaking to present a case study of Tucson, Arizona, one of the nation’s leading cities in green stormwater infrastructure, a subset of GI. Through a micro case analysis of various Tucson neighborhoods, I develop new understandings of how politics, power, and identity can shape neighborhoods’ relation to and understanding of GI. Additionally, I discovered new sensemaking roles and novel insights into how sense giving and sense making misalignment can cause rifts between GI practitioners and communities.