At home in the watershed: Environmental imaginaries and spatial politics in Los Angeles

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

8-2016

Abstract

In Los Angeles, local environmentalists have long advocated for the city to embrace distributed green infrastructure installations to manage stormwater flows and recharge local groundwater supplies. This chapter uses an urban political ecology lens to examine the processes that have aided (and stalled) the adoption of these techniques into the cityscape. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among NGOs building and helping maintain these installations, I explore the political implications of this “watershed approach” to water and landscape in the city. Particular attention is paid to the human labor that maintaining this kind of infrastructure requires, and the different frames through which this kind work has been represented over the years.

Keywords

green infrastructure, Los Angeles, stormwater, labor, groundwater, political ecology green infrastructure, Los Angeles, stormwater, labor, groundwater, political ecology

Discipline

Environmental Policy | Environmental Sciences

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

The Greening of Everyday Life: Challenging Practices, Imagining Possibilities

Editor

J.M. Meyer and J. Kersten

First Page

136

Last Page

150

ISBN

9780198758662

Identifier

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198758662.003.0009

Publisher

Oxford University Press

City or Country

Oxford

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198758662.003.0009

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