Urban greening initiatives frequently promise to support economic growth and to improve environmental conditions for communities with ecological science. Despite these lofty goals, much of the labor required to carry out the quotidian, mundane work of cultivating and maintaining urban nature is provided by unpaid volunteers or low-wage landscapers. Drawing on ethnographic research and 50 in-depth interviews with experts and volunteers who manage greening initiatives in Chicago, this article provides an account for why greening labor is valued in abstract symbolic terms but economically marginalized. Namely, I argue that the everyday labor of greening cities is a distinct form of devalued care work that can be referred to as greenwork. Greenwork is devalued because: (1) urban nature is affectively framed as an invaluable asset to communities, (2) greening initiatives have a stratified labor force with few professional opportunities, and (3) nature is theorized as complex and self-sustaining by experts.
AngeloHilary. 2021. How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AnguelovskiIsabelleConnollyJames J. T., eds. 2022. The Green City and Social Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe. New York: Routledge.
3.
AnguelovskiIsabelleConnollyJames J. T.García-LamarcaMelissaColeHelenPearsallHamil. 2019. “New Scholarly Pathways on Green Gentrification: What Does the Urban ‘Green Turn’ Mean and Where Is It Going?”Progress in Human Geography43:1064–86.
4.
BooneChristopher G.BuckleyGeoffrey L.GroveJ. MorganSisterChona. 2009. “Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland.”Annals of the Association of American Geographers99:767–87.
BrennerNeilTheodoreNik. 2002. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’.”Antipode34:349–79.
7.
Brown-SaracinoJaponica. 2009. A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
8.
CentnerRyan. 2008. “Places of Privileged Consumption Practices: Spatial Capital, the Dot-com Habitus, and San Francisco’s Internet Boom.”City & Community7:193–223.
9.
CheckerMelissa. 2011. “Wiped Out by the ‘Greenwave’: Environmental Gentrification and the Paradoxical Politics of Urban Sustainability.”City & Society23:210–29.
10.
CheckerMelissa. 2017. “A Bridge Too Far: Industrial Gentrification and the Dynamics of Sacrifice in New York City.” Pp. 99–119 in The City is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Strategies in an Urban Age, edited by GreenbergM.LewisP.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
CohenNirKnierbeinSabine. 2021. “Introduction: Social Inequalities, Uneven Space, and Care.” Pp. 37–42 in Care and the City: Encounters with Urban Studies, edited by GabauerA.KnierbeinS.CohenN.LebuhnH.TrogalK.VidermanT.HaasT.New York: Routledge.
13.
CollinsPatricia Hill. 2009. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed.New York: Routledge.
14.
Dalla CostaMariarosaJamesSelma. 1975. The Power of Women and the Subversion of Community. London: Falling Wall Press.
15.
DavidsonMarkLeesLoretta. 2010. “New-build Gentrification: Its Histories, Trajectories, and Critical Geographies.”Population, Space, and Place16:395–411.
16.
DeenerAndrew. 2007. “Commerce as the Structure and Symbol of Neighborhood Life: Reshaping the Meaning of Community in Venice, California.”City & Community6:291–314.
17.
Di ChiroGiovanna. 1996. “Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environment and Social Justice.” Pp. 298–320 in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by CrononW.New York: W.W. Norton.
18.
DuBoisVincent. 2009. “Towards a Critical Policy Ethnography: Lessons from Fieldwork on Welfare Control in France.”Critical Policy Studies3:219–37.
19.
DuffyMignon. 2007. “Doing the Dirty Work: Gender, Race, and Reproductive Labor in Historical Perspective.”Gender & Society21:313–36.
20.
DuffyMignon. 2020. “Driven by Inequalities: Exploring the Resurgence of Domestic Care Work in US Cities.”Sociological Forum35:608–27.
21.
Forest Preserve District of Cook County. 2012. Land Acquisition Plan. October. River Forest, IL: Forest Preserve District Board of Commissioners.
22.
Friends of the Forest Preserves. 2023. “Position Announcement: North Branch Conservation Corps Crew Member.” Retrieved May18, 2023 (https://fotfp.org/who-we-are/jobs/).
23.
García-LamarcaMelissaAnguelovskiIsabelleColeHelenConnollyJames J. T.ArgüellesLucíaBaróFrancescLovelessStephaniedel PulgarCarmen PérezShokryGalia. 2021. “Urban Green Boosterism and City Affordability: For Whom Is the ‘Branded’ Green City?”Urban Studies58:90–112.
24.
García-LamarcaMelissaAnguelovskiIsabelleColeHelenConnollyJames J. T.del PulgarCarmen PérezShokryGaliaTriguero-MasMargarita. 2022. “Urban Green Grabbing: Residential Real Estate Developers Discourse and Practice in Gentrifying Global North Neighborhoods.”Geoforum128:1–10.
25.
Gilio-WhitakerDina. 2019. As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
26.
GlennEvelyn Nakano. 2010. Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27.
GouldKenneth A.LewisTammy L.2018. “From Green Gentrification to Resilience Gentrification: An Example from Brooklyn.”City & Community17:12–15.
28.
GreenbergMichaelLewisJane M.2000. “Brownfields Redevelopment, Preferences and Public Involvement: A Case Study of an Ethnically Mixed Neighborhood.”Urban Studies37:2501–14.
29.
GreenbergMiriamLewisPenny. 2017. “Introduction: From the Factory to the City and Back Again.” Pp. 1–25 in The City is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Strategies in an Urban Age, edited by GreenbergM.LewisP.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
HarawayDonna J.1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.
32.
HattonErin. 2017. “Mechanisms of Invisibility: Rethinking the Concept of Invisible Work.”Work, Employment, and Society31:336–51.
33.
HolifieldRyanWilliamsKathleen C.2014. “Urban Parks, Environmental Justice, and Voluntarism: The Distribution of Friends of the Parks Groups in Milwaukee County.”Environmental Justice7:70–76.
34.
JacobyKarl. 2014. Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
35.
KotsilaPanagiotaHórschelmannKathrinAnguelovskiIsabelleSekulovaFilkaLazovaYuliana. 2020. “Clashing Temporalities of Care and Support as Key Determinants of Transformatory and Justice Potentials in Urban Gardens.”Cities106:1–14.
36.
KrinskyJohnSimonetMaud. 2017. Who Cleans the Park? Public Work and Urban Governance in New York City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
37.
KronenbergJakubAnderssonErikBartonDavidBorgströmSaraLangemeyerJohannesBjörklundToveHaaseDagmarKennedyChristopherKoprowskaKarolinaŁaszkiewiczEdytaMacPhersonTimonStrangeErikWolffManuel. 2021. “The Thorny Path Toward Greening: Unintended Consequences, Trade-Offs, and Constraints in Green and Blue Infrastructure Planning, Implementation, and Management.”Ecology and Society26:36–59.
38.
LagadicMarion. 2019. “Along the London Overground: Transport Improvements, Gentrification, and Symbolic Ownership along London’s Trendiest Line.”City & Community18:1003–27.
39.
LangemeyerJohannesCamps-CalvetMartaCalvet-MirLauraBarthelStephanGómez-BaggethunErik. 2018. “Stewardship of Urban Ecosystem Services: Understanding the Value(s) of Urban Gardens in Barcelona.”Landscape and Urban Planning170:79–89.
40.
LoflandLyn. 1998. The Public Realm: Exploring the City’s Quintessential Social Territory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
41.
LoughranKevin. 2014. “Parks for Profit: The Highline, Growth Machines, and the Uneven Development of Urban Public Spaces.”City & Community13:49–68.
42.
LoughranKevin. 2020. “Urban Parks and Urban Problems: A Historical Perspective on Green Space Development as a Cultural Fix.”Urban Studies57:2321–38.
43.
LoughranKevin. 2021. Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City. New York: Columbia University Press.
44.
LowJohn N.2016. Imprints: The Pokagon Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago. Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
45.
MaurerMegan. 2020. “Nourishing Environments, Caring Cities: Gardening and the Social Reproduction of the Urban Environment in Deindustrial Michigan.”City & Society32:716–37.
46.
McMillan-LequieuAmanda. 2022. “Birdwatchers on the Brownfields: Contradictory Contexts and Ambivalence in the Neoliberal City.”Environmental Justice16:72–81.
47.
MilliganChristineWilesJanine. 2010. “Landscapes of Care.”Progress in Human Geography34:736–54.
48.
MorrowOonaParkerBrenda. 2020. “Care, Commoning, and Collectivity: From Grand Domestic Revolution to Urban Transformation.”Urban Geography41:607–24.
49.
ParkLisa Sun-HeePellowDavid Naguib. 2011. The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants Vs. the Environment in America’s Eden. New York: NYU Press.
50.
PeckJamieTickellAlan. 2002. “Neoliberalizing Space.” Pp. 33–57 in Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in Western Europe and North America, edited by BrennerN.TheodoreN.Cambridge, England: Blackwell.
51.
PellowDavid Naguib. 2004. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
52.
RibasVanesaDillJanette S.CohenPhillip N.2012. “Mobility for Care Workers: Job Changes and Wages for Nurse Aides.”Social Science and Medicine75:2183–90.
53.
RiedmanElizabethRomanLara A.PearsallHamilMaslinMindyIfillTimDenticeDana. 2022. “Why Don’t People Plant Trees? Uncovering Barriers to Participation in Urban Tree Planting Initiatives.”Urban Forestry and Urban Greening73:1–10.
54.
RobertsDorothy. 1997. “Spiritual and Menial Housework.”Yale Journal of Law and Feminism9:51–80.
55.
ScarboroughWilliamKaresFaith R.ArenasIvánLewisAmanda E.2019. Adversity and Resiliency for Chicago’s First: The State of Racial Justice for American Indian Chicagoans. Chicago, IL: Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.
56.
SpadeDean. 2020. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during This Crisis and the Next. New York: Verso.
57.
StaceyClaire. 2005. “Finding Dignity in Dirty Work: The Constraints and Rewards of Low-wage Home Care Labour.”Sociology of Health and Illness27:831–54.
58.
TaylorDorceta E.2000. “The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses.”The American Behavioral Scientist43:508–80.
59.
TaylorDorceta E.2009. The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s 1900s. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
60.
TaylorDorceta E.2016. The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
61.
TillKaren E.2012. “Wounded Cities: Memory-work and Place-based Ethics of Care.”Political Geography31:3–14.
62.
TimmermansStefanTavoryIddo. 2012. “Theory Construction in Qualitative Research: From Grounded Theory to Abductive Analysis.”Sociological Theory30:167–86.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2022b. “Labor Force Characteristics of Foreign-born Workers Summary.” March 18. Retrieved February17, 2023 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.nr0.htm).
65.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2022c. “Landscaping and Groundskeeping Laborers, Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2022.” Retrieved February17, 2023 (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes373011.htm).
66.
WatkinsShannon LeaVogtJessMinceySarah K.FischerBurnell C.BergmannRachael A.WidneySarah E.WestphalLynne M.SweeneySean. 2018. “Does Collaborative Tree Planting between Nonprofits and Neighborhood Groups Improve Neighborhood Community Capacity?”Cities74:83–99.
67.
WilliamsMiriam J.2017. “Care-full Justice in the City.”Antipode49:821–39.
68.
WolchJenniferWilsonJohn P.FerenbachJed. 2005. “Parks and Park Funding in Los Angeles: An Equity-mapping Analysis.”Urban Geography26:4–35.
