The political ecology of neglect: Race, gender, and environmental change in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania)

This study examines the roles that racism and sexism play towards the exclusion of black women from urban public space in Philadelphia. Drawing on political ecology, environmental racism, and feminist theory traditions in Geography, as well as theories of segregation and crime in Sociology and Criminology, it looks at how racial residential segregation and women's fear of male sexual violence combine to regulate black women's participation in the public sphere and deny them access to urban parks and open space. Further, it approaches urban ecological change as a socio-political phenomenon that evinces and reproduces larger social inequalities. The study takes an exploratory approach to the topic, and attempts to initiate a dialog on the topical and methodological development of an urban political ecology. Concepts of marginality, environment, hazards and resources are conceptualized so as to become more viable in an urban context.; Qualitative fieldwork in the largely black community of Cobbs Creek in West Philadelphia shows that women and children are especially likely to avoid urban parks for reasons of safety and fear. Fears of racial harassment appear to preclude access among black women to parks and public spaces in or near white neighborhoods while fears of male sexual violence appear to preclude their access to the local Cobbs Creek Park. Physical and ecological deterioration of Cobbs Creek Park augment women's fears. Cobbs Creek residents make little distinction between the deterioration of the park and the deterioration of the larger neighborhood. Among residents, park and neighborhood deterioration are understood largely as the result of racially motivated political neglect on the part of the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the Fairmount Park Commission.; The study suggests the disproportionate distribution of the social impacts of neglect among communities of color and women. Neglect emerges as a local phenomenon, its effects mediated by existing local socio-economic conditions and circumstances, which themselves are traceable to larger socio-political inequalities. Women, especially black women, are found to be disproportionately impacted by the consequences of neglect at the larger scale. Following political ecology, the study concludes that social marginality and ecological marginality are dialectically linked in the city and that each reflects power and inequality. These findings have immediate implications for policies of urban ecological restoration, community development, and urban open space management.