Stewarding green spaces requires wealth and property privilege

Evidence

When I spoke with Mark Rauzon, one of the original founders of FOSC, he noted that the surrounding neighborhood is well-to-do, which meant that at the get-go, FOSC had lawyers, architects, and landscape designers at its disposal—all of them landed, property-owning professionals. This is a very different situation than in West or East Oakland, where people might be working paycheck to paycheck, with no margin to spare on stewarding or even paying attention to the local watershed. In turn, people in these neighborhoods have far fewer physical spaces for rest, recreation, and conviviality—and those that do exist may be poorly looked after. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 663

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s privilege critique of Odell’s proposals — her own example concedes that attention/stewardship work presupposes property ownership and free time. — connects to: Green consumer choice is a class privilege unavailable in food deserts — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 717