The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race

Abstract

A primary goal of landscape architects and other citizens concerned with the built environment should be to disassemble the fatal links that connect race, place, and power. This article shows that the national spatial imaginary is racially marked, and that segregation serves as a crucible for creating the emphasis on exclusion and augmented exchange value that has guided the contemporary ideal of the properly-ordered, prosperous private home. For aggrieved communities of color and other non-normative populations, on the other hand, a different spatial imaginary exists. This perspective on space revolves around solidarities within, between, and across spaces. It views space as valuable and finite, as a public responsibility for which all must take stewardship. Privileging the public good over private interests, this spatial imaginary envisions the costs of environmental protection, efficient transportation, affordable housing, public education, and universal medical care as common responsibilities to be shared rather than as onerous burdens to be avoided. This paper argues for a two-part strategy that entails first, a frontal attack on all the mechanisms that prevent people of color from equal opportunities to accumulate assets that appreciate in value and that can be passed down across generations, and second, the embrace of a spatial imaginary based on privileging use value over exchange value, sociality over selfishness, and inclusion over exclusion.