Predatory Development and Climate Change

Christina Jackson, Stockton, and HMEI/Princeton Mellon Fellow Davy Knittle

Click here to attend the discussion on November 17 in Betts Auditorium. You must have your PUID and follow University guidelines. Lunch boxes will be provided post-event.

Click here to attend via Zoom link, open to both PUID and non-PUID holders. 

This session will broadcast on Princeton University - Channel 7 LIVE * 

Renewal, revitalization, remediation, and resilience describe a range of actions that have used the language of growth to advance often inequitable plans for urban neighborhoods. Predominantly Black communities in many U.S. cities have borne the brunt of past urban restructuring, raising the question of who benefits and who is left out of renewal and revitalization narratives. Contemporary planning for urban and environmental futures is tasked with facilitating large-scale transformation that helps prepare for uncertainty without repeating the violence against marginalized communities of previous calls for urban transformation. As urban Black communities and communities in poverty fight the triple threat of gentrification, unemployment, and environmental challenges, local movements for jobs and safer environmental conditions provide visions for more equitable forms of renewal.

As Princeton University and cities across the U.S. “return” to a pre-pandemic normal, the Fall 2021 edition of the Princeton-Mellon Research Forum on the Urban Environment asks the question, what does it mean to return? Under whose terms? As we reacquaint ourselves with in person learning and scholarly dialogs, our aim is to use this time to reflect on not only the events of the past 18 months, but the ways that this period has encouraged us to reframe the questions and categories that we use to discuss cities and the built environment. With the loss of millions of lives globally, a true return to normal is unattainable, and our individual and collective grief points to the impossibilities of return and/or its challenges. Yet, return can also mean remediation, both for communities, societies, and our environment. At the same time, return allows us to challenge the implicitly normative ideas of the future that undergird remediation projects. The framework opens up questions about whose ideas of the past and future dictate what constitutes a return.

Note: In-person attendance is currently available for registered Princeton University ID holders only and face coverings are required. In-person attendance is contingent on University guidelines for indoor events — updates will be posted as necessary.