City of forests, city of farms: constructing nature in New York City

This dissertation examines how the politics and practices of urban forestry and urban agriculture in New York City are negotiated. Centering on the municipal long-term sustainability plan, PlaNYC2030, it examines the network of actors, discourses, and socio-natural environments that constitute urban forestry and agriculture. It asks: what actors via what institutions make what claims in order to shape the goals that are set within the plan? What accounts for the varied treatment of urban forestry and agriculture within a single sustainability planning process? And how do the goals of the plan alter resource management practices going forward? It compares two natural resource use systems that are constituted out of different material components, deploying differing discourses about nature, society, and ‘sustainability’. This study presents case studies of urban forestry and agriculture as they thread through (yet also exceed the scope of) PlaNYC2030 from 2007-2011. This comparison reveals the differences and similarities that exist between two domains that have varying degrees of institutionalization within the plan. Urban forestry was an important part of PlaNYC, which catalyzed the creation of the MillionTreesNYC campaign, a public-private partnership to plant and care for 1 million new trees citywide by 2017. In contrast, urban agriculture was absent from the first version of the plan, yet was a vibrant area of engagement among civic groups and elected officials that led to the development of a series of reports on local food systems. Urban agriculture was subsequently incorporated into the 2011 updated PlaNYC through a cross-cutting section on food. The primary research methods used were semi-structured interviews with policymakers and natural resource managers and discourse analysis of plans, reports, and documents associated with PlaNYC, MillionTreesNYC, and food policy in New York. A secondary method of participant observation and fieldwork grounded the research in the materiality of urban forestry and agriculture. Finally, social network analysis visualizations were created to supplement the qualitative case findings. Empirically, this study examines the political, discursive, and material dimensions of urban sustainability planning and natural resource management in a global city. Theoretically, it brings concepts of urban politics and networked governance into nature-society geography.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Lindsay K. Campbel