Green Infrastructure and the Hidden Politics of Urban Stormwater Governance in a Postindustrial City

Annals of The Association of American Geographers. May2019, Vol. 109 Issue 3, p909-925. 17p. 1 Chart.

Abstract

Infrastructure tells a material story of ongoing challenges in cities, reflecting the diverse, normative desires of different communities. In this article we examine the introduction of green infrastructure technologies into urban infrastructure systems to think critically about these challenges and desires. Green infrastructure is an intentionally designed, multifunctional technology that directly uses or mimics the ecological processes of soils and plants (e.g., green rooftops, rain gardens, and bioswales). Facing budget shortfalls as well as demands to mitigate hazards and green the city, urban leaders are looking at green infrastructure as a facility that can provide diverse cobenefits along with traditional services. A focus on stormwater-based metrics, however—effectively reframing green infrastructure as green stormwater infrastructure—discursively tamps down alternative politics and desires for the city. Through a case study of Pittsburgh’s stormwater governance, we argue that the work to (re)technologize green infrastructure as green stormwater infrastructure is an act of depoliticization that hinders needed conversations about just infrastructure outcomes. We draw on themes from qualitative interviews with community members engaged in urban water governance to suggest that these moments of transition provide an opportunity to illuminate previously obscured infrastructure politics and challenge the forms of knowledge that bind us to conventional routines of urban environmental governance. We see an opportunity to reframe the conversation in a way that opens up opportunities for historically disenfranchised communities to voice their needs beyond the technocratic problem of stormwater management.

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