Accommodating wilderness: Gentrification and the production of nature in the Adirondack Park.
Item
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Title
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Accommodating wilderness: Gentrification and the production of nature in the Adirondack Park.
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Identifier
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AAI3144090
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identifier
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3144090
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Creator
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Darling, Eliza.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Neil Smith
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | Geography
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines rural gentrification in the Fulton Chain region of the Adirondack Park, a six-million acre, tightly regulated wilderness area located in northern New York State. Much like its urban counterpart, gentrification in the Adirondacks is an uneven and sporadic phenomenon, manifesting in those parts of the Park where burgeoning seasonal-home development in the context of the production of nature for recreational consumption has begun to drive residential real estate prices beyond the economic means of the Adirondack working class. I argue that a constellation of State land management practices, including the outright ownership of wilderness areas in the form of the Forest Preserve as well as density restrictions on private property, have unwittingly contributed to setting up the conditions for rural gentrification by (1) creating a produced scarcity of private property in those Adirondack municipalities containing high percentages of State-owned land, (2) limiting subdivision and development on large swaths of what private property remains, and (3) preserving scenic recreational wilderness areas which in turn increase the rent-generating capacity of wilderness real estate on nearby private property. The State of New York, however, is only one agent in the production of Adirondack nature, both material and discursive. The Adirondack landscape has long been bound up with the romanticization of both rurality and wilderness, which has in turn been profitably mobilized in the capitalistic production of demand for green commodities, including countrified real estate. And development capital on multiple scales, from individual owner-occupants to corporate conglomerates, has materially shaped the gentrified geography of the Park through selective investment in the built environment. I suggest that the purveyors, the beneficiaries and the victims of Adirondack gentrification cannot be reduced to a simple "outsiders versus locals" taxonomy, arguing that the complexities of kinship, class and land tenure help to mitigate and complicate the outcome of gentrification in terms of both profit-making and displacement. Finally, I explore the possibility of a "rural rent gap" in an attempt to determine the extent to which this facet of urban social theory can help to explain the causes, consequences, and geographical expression of Adirondack gentrification.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
