Laboring through 'neoliberalization': The cultural materialism of urban environmental transformation.

摘要

Urban form results from relational processes between political economy and nature. In other words, human labor transforms nature into urban forms, resulting in symbolic and material cultural engagement with the environment. From this, aspects of urban environments considered 'natural' such as the urban forest, can actually be considered socially produced, cultural artifacts produced by human labor for the survival and prosperity of people. Urban areas provide vivid contexts in which to study the human/nature interactions that produce and consume these social-natures because cities are epicenters for human (re)productive process.; However, what appears to be an engagement with nature for the prosperity of everyone is actually a process appropriated by late capitalism, geared toward the expansion of profit. Instead of equitably distributed green urban environments, the unevenness inherent to the cultural materialism of capitalist political economy within the United States has produced inequitable urban environmental geographies in cities like Milwaukee. This is because capitalist metabolic relations appropriate and transform urban green infrastructures in accord with profitability and fiscal austerity, rather than what is in the public's best interests.; Generally, neoliberal capitalist processes are a reversion to market led urban service provisions. They stress cutbacks in public funding for municipal infrastructures, privatization of said infrastructures, enhanced reliance upon public/private partnerships for their maintenance, and community activism combined with individual accountability to redress public cutbacks to social service provision. This research investigates how these neoliberal forms of governance have affected efforts to (re)forest and revitalize urban green infrastructures, and what effect they may have upon the ability urban poor communities to consume them.; A qualitative methodology is employed to conduct a scalar investigation into the effects of these processes. In order to accomplish this, stakeholders involved in urban forestry and revitalization of park spaces were interviewed to determine the extent to which neoliberalizing processes are impacting provision for, and access to, green infrastructures. Thirty-six individuals from national, regional, state, municipal, and neighborhood organizations have been interviewed in a semi-structured format over the course of a year.; The results of this study suggest that public retrenchment of provision for urban green infrastructures is ubiquitous in Wisconsin, if not the United States. While the situation is highly contextual, devolvement of responsibility for the production and maintenance of these infrastructures to the local and bodily scale is occurring. The reactions to these cutbacks are highly varied according to context. However, nonprofits are increasingly employing private monies to 'enlist' citizen laborers to redress disinvestments in urban green environments formerly underwritten by the 'State.'