Commercially unproductive spaces are chronically threatened despite local value

Evidence

The Rose Garden is a public space. It is a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project from the 1930s, and like all WPA projects, was built by people put to work by the federal government during the Depression. I’m reminded of its beginnings every time I see its dignified architecture: that this rose garden, an incredible public good, came out of a program that itself was also a public good. Still, it wasn’t surprising to me to find out recently that the Rose Garden is in an area that almost got turned into condos in the seventies. I’m appalled, but not surprised. I’m also not surprised that it took a concerted effort by local residents to have the area rezoned to prevent that from happening. That’s because this kind of thing always seems to be happening: those spaces deemed commercially unproductive are always under threat, since what they “produce” can’t be measured or exploited or even easily identified—despite the fact that anyone in the neighborhood can tell you what an immense value the garden provides. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 81

Categorization

• XREF: Builds the analogy later extended to ‘parks and libraries of the self’ being threatened; connects to the reader’s infrastructure frames in the trees article.
• QUESTION: Worth checking the actual history of the Oakland Rose Garden condo threat/rezoning fight that Odell gestures at.