The Right to the City/The Right to Landscape:From an Elitist to a More Just Urban Landscape in

California’s East Bay

Don MitchellDepartment of Geography

Syracuse University

MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

Me, landscaping Moraga, 1965

Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure” (Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure” (Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure” (Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

The Hacienda is representative of the Californios, the “Spanish Dons of whom one reads so much in the … numerous historical romances of the period” (Carey McWilliams, 1946, 51).

Russell Bruzzone

More condominiums “might work for Berkeley, but would be a disaster for Moraga” (2008 campaign against open space law extension)

More condominiums “might work for Berkeley, but would be a disaster for Moraga” (2008 campaign against open space law extension)

Lower income housing would “drastically change Moraga’s unique family-oriented character forever” (2008 campaign against open space law extension)

Moraga

2010Population = 16016

1.7% Black0.2% Native American0.2% Pacific Islander1.8% “Some other race”5.0% Two or more races14.9% Asian76.2% White(7% Hispanic)

2006-2009/1095.9% in Management, service … jobs$147,000 Median family Income$995,000 Median house value

200081.1% White

93.7% in Management, service … jobs$116,000 Median family income$538,500 Median house value

199089% White

USA

13% Black

5% Asian72% White

$51,914 Median household income$188,500 Median house value

75% White, 12.3% Black, 3.6% Asian

Moraga

2010Population = 16015

1.7% Black0.2% Native American0.2% Pacific Islander1.8% “Some other race”5.0% Two or more races14.9% Asian76.2% White(7% Hispanic)

2006-2009/1095.9% in Management, service … jobs$147,000 Median family Income$995,000 Median house value

200081.1% White

93.7% in Management, service … jobs$116,000 Median family income$538,500 Median house value2.9% Below poverty line199089% White

Oakland

28% Black

16.8% Asian34.5% White(25.4% Hispanic)

2008-20012

$51,683 Median household income$449,800 Median house value20.3% Below poverty line

31.3% White, 35.7% Black, 15.2% Asian (21.9% Hispanic)$40,055 Median household income$235,500 Median house value19.4% Below poverty line

MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

“The federal government dramatically democratized the housing market while simultaneously enforcing racial segregation that resembled apartheid.”

The federal government itself “created the machinery through which housing discrimination operates.”

(Robert Self, American Babylon, 2003, 97)

In 1964San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14

In 1964San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14

Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

In 1964San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14Other bayside suburbs voted in favor with percentages ranging from 67-73%

Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

In 1964San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14Other bayside suburbs voted in favor with percentages ranging from 67-73%

East Oakland voted 92% “No”

Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

Moraga, 1964

Moraga, 1964

“After decades of lobbying both state and federal governments against fair housing, and decades of promoting segregation in local communities, representatives of the real estate industry then claimed they were merely looking out for the ‘rights’ of their constituents and were innocent of any complicity in discrimination. The purposeful deception underscored the lengths to which industry representatives would go to preserve their control over one of the most lucrative real estate markets in the country” (Self 2003, 265)

MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

Richmond

How have some – whites – “distanced themselves from both industrial pollution and nonwhites?” (Laura Pulido, 2000, 14).

Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

Such never-never lands only exist because they are part of a history of conquest and globalization

Such degraded landscapes only exist because they are part of a history of conquest and globalization

“All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals: to account for the production of nature and environment, and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures and environments help shape social relations”

(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

“All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals: to account for the production of nature and environment, and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures and environments help shape social relations”

(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

“All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals: to account for the production of nature and environment, and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures and environments help shape social relations”

(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

Oakland

Moraga

Political ecology is motivated “primarily (but not exclusively) [by a] social justice project” (Mann 2009, 337)

A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)

A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)

States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).

A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)

States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).

A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)

States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).