THE GREENLINING OF STATEN ISLAND

Illuminates how borough residents urban planners and politicians used environmental policy to cement a racially restrictive landscape Though it was once home to the world s largest landfill today Staten Island boasts thousands of acres of parklands dozens of public private conservation arrangements and four ecological zoning districts In this book Patrick D Nugent details the political forces that gave rise to this wealth of greenery in a famously dense city He demonstrates how postwar economic and political trajectories intersected in the 1960s with the rising consciousness of environmentalism to create a distinctive laboratory in Staten Island where white communities and politicians heeded the rising call for the preservation of green space but often as a tool to maintain racial segregation Ecological zoning public private park management conservation easement environmental litigation and other strategies created a lush discriminatory landscape Nugent refers to these policies as greenlining The Greenlining of Staten Island shows that the political and environmental history of Staten Island is key to understanding how environmentalism has been used to reinforce racial discrimination not just in New York City but nationwide By the mid 1970s conse