Public green space doubles as political space threatened by privatization.

Evidence

23 A major precursor to the conflict over Karura had occurred in 1989. The regime had been steadily appropriating and privatizing parts of Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, which Maathai has likened to New York’s Central Park and London’s Hyde Park as a vital green space, a space for leisure and for political gatherings. When Maathai learned that the ruling party was to erect a sixty-story skyscraper for new party headquarters and a media center in Uhuru Park, battle was joined. Green Belt activists spearheaded a successful movement to turn back the regime’s efforts to privatize public land under the deceptively spectacular iconography of national development. The regime would not forgive Maathai for humiliating them in this manner. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1136

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberal complaints about big government fuel further privatization that expands government. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2185; Public and private space boundaries shift with power struggles; Private knowledge can convert public space into semiprivate territory — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 709 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal complaints about big government fuel further privatization that expands government. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2185
• Public and private space boundaries shift with power struggles #expands (0.78)
• Contests over public space access are struggles over power. #expands (0.78) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 121
• Private knowledge can convert public space into semiprivate territory #expands (0.72) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 709
• Faux public spaces reduce visitors to consumers or threats #expands (0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 80