Well-Intentioned Whiteness: Green Urban Development And Black Resistance In Kansas City (Geographies Of Justice And Social Transformation Ser.)

This book documents how whiteness can take up space in US cities and policies through well-intentioned progressive policy agendas that support green urbanism. Through in-depth ethnographic research in Kansas City, I explore how urban food projects-a key pillar of the city's green urban policy agenda-are conceived, implemented, and how they are perceived by residents of 'food deserts,' those intended to benefit from these projects. In doing so, I examine the narratives and histories that mostly white local food advocates are guided by, and I uplift an alternative urban history of Kansas City-one that centers the contributions of Black and brown residents to urban prosperity, and highlights how displacement of communities of color, through green development, has historically been a key urban development strategy in the city. This book highlights how myopic focus on green urbanism, as a solution to myriad urban 'problems,' ends up reinforcing racial inequity, and uplifting structural whiteness. Whiteness is now oft-publicly discussed in the U.S. This makes fine-grained analysis of how whiteness takes up space in our cities even more important. I examine this process intimately, and in doing so, flesh out our understanding of how racial inequities can be (re)created by everyday urban actors

• | Author: Chhaya Kolavalli
• | Publisher: University Of Georgia Press
• | Publication Date: Apr 15, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 242 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0820364096
• | ISBN-13: 9780820364094