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Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City
In this innovative account of the urbanization of nature in New York City, Matthew Gandy explores how the raw materials of nature have been reworked to produce a "metropolitan nature" distinct from the forms of nature experienced by early settlers. The book traces five broad the expansion and redefinition of public space, the construction of landscaped highways, the creation of a modern water supply system, the radical environmental politics of the barrio in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the contemporary politics of the environmental justice movement.Drawing on political economy, environmental studies, social theory, cultural theory, and architecture, Gandy shows how New York's environmental history is bound up not only with the upstate landscapes that stretch beyond the city's political boundaries but also with more distant places that reflect the nation's colonial and imperial legacies. Using the shifting meaning of nature under urbanization as a framework, he looks at how modern nature has been produced through interrelated transformations ranging from new water technologies to changing fashions in landscape design. Throughout, he considers the economic and ideological forces that underlie phenomena as diverse as the location of parks and the social stigma of dirty neighborhoods.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 2002
About the author
Matthew Gandy
46 books10 followersMatthew Gandy is Professor of Geography at Cambridge University. His previous books include Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (2002) and The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination (2014). You can find out more about Matthew via his website: http://www.matthewgandy.org/
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 23, 2022
Nineteenth century Europe and North America placed political power at the center of control over the process of urbanization and associated nature. Accordingly, it is the reshaping of nature that has made civilized urban life possible (Gandy 2002, 2) yet we witness a shift of relation with nature in twentieth century, especially in later half of it. The production of cities has altered the relationship between nature and society in material and symbolic dimensions. These transforming relationships can be apprehended through investigations in history and nature. Like Cronon’s work, Gandy also criticizes the sharp delineation between natural and artificial. For him, the explanation of physical and biological sciences is rooted in metaphors that are social and cultural in origin (Gandy 2002, 11).
Asserting that history of cities can be established through study of water in the city, Gandy documents the history of New York’s water supply. While early city residents had extracted ground water through wells or used surface water of ponds, the first instance of government control on New York’s water dates to 1744 municipal waterworks project which however was destructed upon British occupation. On parallel, city started spending tax revenues on building public wells. Later on, the private modes were also controlled by the government as evident from 1808 when stinking Collect Pond, a source of good water supply for residents for more than a century, was resolved to be filled in. And these control dynamics gained further strength during 1832 cholera outbreak. Thus city built a Croton Aqueduct in 1842 thus shifting city’s ecological frontier upstate New York. Yet this project was the first instance in a long term water infrastructure legacy by city government continued for more than a century (Gandy 2002, 19–40).
A series of state legislations followed this expansion of New York’s ecological frontier which favored the city at cost of regulations imposed on the Croton Valley. This gave rise to conflicts between investors in Croton Valley and the city interests, and initiated a debate between watershed regulation versus city filtration. Further, the capital interests also played a significant role when distant future water resource of Catskill Mountains was attempted to be controlled by a private company which was eventually discarded by Supreme Court ruling. Furthermore, water conflicts were also witnessed among government units when New Jersey State petitioned against New York’s water extraction from tributaries of Delaware River. Thus water policy was shifting its role from previously only technical domain to now social, economic, politic, and other domains. And these impacts are reciprocal meaning that now the change in any of these domains would affect how water policies would be shaped. The Municipal Water Finance Authority, for example, financing capital projects through selling bonds backed by water and sewer fee result in increased water charges: a neoliberal impetus toward the privatization of public services in American cities (Gandy 2002, 42–75).
Another example of government envisioned public infrastructure project is 1857 greensward plan that produced New York’s central park which, like water systems, became a stage for driving and being driven by many domains of New York society. Using same legal device which was used for building city’s water system, power of eminent domain, New York State Legislature authorized the city to acquire seven hundred acres in the middle of Manhattan to create a space permanently removed from the private real estate market. Making of Central Park is a history of traversing through many political, economic, and social conflicts. The Park was a commodification of first nature which displaced around sixteen hundred residents of shanty towns, asserted forcible education through label trees, was managed with highly restrictive regulations, had epitomized into a graffiti smeared ruin phase, and had indirectly promoted capitalist uniformity in the city thus removing already marginalized (Gandy 2002, 77–113).
One of the most apparent public infrastructures of twentieth century is urban parkway which significantly changed the society, its form and its relationship to the nature. These urban parkways which received celebration during interwar period were eventually the platforms of misery. Stemming from the idea of city beautiful, these parkways changed the way humans interacted with nature. Instead of being physically immersed in the nature, humans were now spectators of nature from the fast speed automobile on the parkway. These parkways were also the epochal instrument celebrated during avante-garde modernism. Moreover, the construction of huge scale and costly urban parkway projects was possible due to Keynesian pattern of policy making in interwar period. Yet amidst these projects were the underlying issues of social and spatial separation rather than interaction. These projects, on the other end, offer evidence for weak community power of resistance. Yet philosophers and urbanists in postwar period brought to the fore the challenges that were born out of these projects. Contributions by these scholars were paralleled by increasing community awareness and organization for resistance, thus shaping a different story of public infrastructure in New York since 1960 (Gandy 2002, 115–52).
Second half of the twentieth century has plethora of social movements of social complexion, cultural identity, political agenda, and environmental activism. Young Lords movement of Puerto Rican community in New York, for example, organized against poor waste disposal in their community. This politicization of garbage challenged the racialization of hygiene and popular prejudices. Yet failure of Young Lord in particular hint the reasons that how an earlier unified and focused movement later on became a political and violent one and thus experienced public alienation. The resistance movement against Greenpoint-Williamsburg incinerator is, on another note, a successful community activism example which did not challenge structure of the society but rather asserted issue specific organization. Resulting waste linkages of New York city with other states highlight the ecological frontiers of an urban system and the myriad of relationships that it generates (Gandy 2002, 154–227).
Asserting that history of cities can be established through study of water in the city, Gandy documents the history of New York’s water supply. While early city residents had extracted ground water through wells or used surface water of ponds, the first instance of government control on New York’s water dates to 1744 municipal waterworks project which however was destructed upon British occupation. On parallel, city started spending tax revenues on building public wells. Later on, the private modes were also controlled by the government as evident from 1808 when stinking Collect Pond, a source of good water supply for residents for more than a century, was resolved to be filled in. And these control dynamics gained further strength during 1832 cholera outbreak. Thus city built a Croton Aqueduct in 1842 thus shifting city’s ecological frontier upstate New York. Yet this project was the first instance in a long term water infrastructure legacy by city government continued for more than a century (Gandy 2002, 19–40).
A series of state legislations followed this expansion of New York’s ecological frontier which favored the city at cost of regulations imposed on the Croton Valley. This gave rise to conflicts between investors in Croton Valley and the city interests, and initiated a debate between watershed regulation versus city filtration. Further, the capital interests also played a significant role when distant future water resource of Catskill Mountains was attempted to be controlled by a private company which was eventually discarded by Supreme Court ruling. Furthermore, water conflicts were also witnessed among government units when New Jersey State petitioned against New York’s water extraction from tributaries of Delaware River. Thus water policy was shifting its role from previously only technical domain to now social, economic, politic, and other domains. And these impacts are reciprocal meaning that now the change in any of these domains would affect how water policies would be shaped. The Municipal Water Finance Authority, for example, financing capital projects through selling bonds backed by water and sewer fee result in increased water charges: a neoliberal impetus toward the privatization of public services in American cities (Gandy 2002, 42–75).
Another example of government envisioned public infrastructure project is 1857 greensward plan that produced New York’s central park which, like water systems, became a stage for driving and being driven by many domains of New York society. Using same legal device which was used for building city’s water system, power of eminent domain, New York State Legislature authorized the city to acquire seven hundred acres in the middle of Manhattan to create a space permanently removed from the private real estate market. Making of Central Park is a history of traversing through many political, economic, and social conflicts. The Park was a commodification of first nature which displaced around sixteen hundred residents of shanty towns, asserted forcible education through label trees, was managed with highly restrictive regulations, had epitomized into a graffiti smeared ruin phase, and had indirectly promoted capitalist uniformity in the city thus removing already marginalized (Gandy 2002, 77–113).
One of the most apparent public infrastructures of twentieth century is urban parkway which significantly changed the society, its form and its relationship to the nature. These urban parkways which received celebration during interwar period were eventually the platforms of misery. Stemming from the idea of city beautiful, these parkways changed the way humans interacted with nature. Instead of being physically immersed in the nature, humans were now spectators of nature from the fast speed automobile on the parkway. These parkways were also the epochal instrument celebrated during avante-garde modernism. Moreover, the construction of huge scale and costly urban parkway projects was possible due to Keynesian pattern of policy making in interwar period. Yet amidst these projects were the underlying issues of social and spatial separation rather than interaction. These projects, on the other end, offer evidence for weak community power of resistance. Yet philosophers and urbanists in postwar period brought to the fore the challenges that were born out of these projects. Contributions by these scholars were paralleled by increasing community awareness and organization for resistance, thus shaping a different story of public infrastructure in New York since 1960 (Gandy 2002, 115–52).
Second half of the twentieth century has plethora of social movements of social complexion, cultural identity, political agenda, and environmental activism. Young Lords movement of Puerto Rican community in New York, for example, organized against poor waste disposal in their community. This politicization of garbage challenged the racialization of hygiene and popular prejudices. Yet failure of Young Lord in particular hint the reasons that how an earlier unified and focused movement later on became a political and violent one and thus experienced public alienation. The resistance movement against Greenpoint-Williamsburg incinerator is, on another note, a successful community activism example which did not challenge structure of the society but rather asserted issue specific organization. Resulting waste linkages of New York city with other states highlight the ecological frontiers of an urban system and the myriad of relationships that it generates (Gandy 2002, 154–227).
March 4, 2008
Comprehensive review of major NYC construction/industrial projects that shaped the city's geography and environment. Interesting read, but won't catch your attention unless architecture and construction is your passion.
July 10, 2010
absolument brillant!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews