Do Trees Seed Neoliberalism? Race,Public Spaces,and the Moral Economy of Greenery in 1990s Los Angeles

Abstract

This article looks at the beautification efforts undertaken in South Central Los Angeles by TreePeople, an environmental organization promoting the creation of urban forests in public spaces. Based on a variety of primary sources such as memos, correspondence, documentary photographs, and newspaper cuttings, the article reveals how community organizers have crafted discourses on neighborhood management to a broader neoliberal agenda, for which crime prevention policies and the regulation of the social order in inner city neighborhoods are paramount. The tree-planting activity organized on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Saturday, January 13, 1990, epitomizes the rationalization of public space through incentives concerned with the well-being, personal development, and character building of community members. In sum, the article demonstrates how community organizers promoted personal responsibility over government intervention to tackle an urban environment defined as inherently violent, while organizing the management and discipline of poverty through local politics of urban forestry.