This document discusses the production of landscapes and environments in California's East Bay and how they have shaped social relations. It describes how some white communities like Moraga have distanced themselves from industrial pollution and non-white populations through policies that promoted segregation and the creation of idyllic, natural landscapes. Meanwhile, places like Oakland have borne the environmental degradation. The document argues that political ecology aims to understand how human factors and social relations influence the environment and nature, and how produced landscapes then feedback to shape those social relations.

1. The Right to the City/The Right to Landscape:
From an Elitist to a More Just Urban Landscape in
California’s East Bay
Don Mitchell
Department of Geography
Syracuse University

2. MoragaOaklandSan Francisco
Me, landscaping
Moraga, 1965

3. Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a
dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their
red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

5. Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts
of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local
decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure”
(Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

6. Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts
of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local
decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure”
(Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

7. Political Ecology: “the development of regional or spatial accounts
of degradation that link, through ‘chains of explanation’, local
decision-makers to spatial variations in environmental structure”
(Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., p. 546)

11. Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a
dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their
red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

12. The Hacienda is representative of the Californios, the “Spanish Dons of whom
one reads so much in the … numerous historical romances of the period”
(Carey McWilliams, 1946, 51).

26. Russell Bruzzone

47. More condominiums
“might work for
Berkeley, but would
be a disaster for
Moraga” (2008
campaign against
open space law
extension)

48. More condominiums
“might work for
Berkeley, but would
be a disaster for
Moraga” (2008
campaign against
open space law
extension)
Lower income housing
would “drastically
change Moraga’s
unique family-oriented
character forever”
(2008 campaign against
open space law
extension)

50. Moraga
2010
Population = 16016
1.7% Black
0.2% Native American
0.2% Pacific Islander
1.8% “Some other race”
5.0% Two or more races
14.9% Asian
76.2% White
(7% Hispanic)
2006-2009/10
95.9% in Management, service …
jobs
$147,000 Median family Income
$995,000 Median house value
2000
81.1% White
93.7% in Management, service …
jobs
$116,000 Median family income
$538,500 Median house value
1990
89% White
USA
13% Black
5% Asian
72% White
$51,914 Median household income
$188,500 Median house value
75% White, 12.3% Black, 3.6% Asian

51. Moraga
2010
Population = 16015
1.7% Black
0.2% Native American
0.2% Pacific Islander
1.8% “Some other race”
5.0% Two or more races
14.9% Asian
76.2% White
(7% Hispanic)
2006-2009/10
95.9% in Management, service … jobs
$147,000 Median family Income
$995,000 Median house value
2000
81.1% White
93.7% in Management, service … jobs
$116,000 Median family income
$538,500 Median house value
2.9% Below poverty line
1990
89% White
Oakland
28% Black
16.8% Asian
34.5% White
(25.4% Hispanic)
2008-20012
$51,683 Median household income
$449,800 Median house value
20.3% Below poverty line
31.3% White, 35.7% Black, 15.2% Asian
(21.9% Hispanic)
$40,055 Median household income
$235,500 Median house value
19.4% Below poverty line

52. MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

53. “The federal government dramatically democratized the housing market
while simultaneously enforcing racial segregation that resembled apartheid.”
The federal government itself “created the machinery through which
housing discrimination operates.”
(Robert Self, American Babylon, 2003, 97)

54. In 1964
San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14

55. In 1964
San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14
Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against
the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

56. In 1964
San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14
Other bayside suburbs voted in favor with percentages ranging from 67-73%
Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against
the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

57. In 1964
San Leandro voted 80% in favor of Proposition 14
Other bayside suburbs voted in favor with percentages ranging from 67-73%
East Oakland voted 92% “No”
Proposition 14 was “the first evidence of an emerging white political backlash against
the civil rights movement in California” (Self 2003, 167)

58. Moraga, 1964

59. Moraga, 1964

60. “After decades of lobbying both state and federal governments against fair
housing, and decades of promoting segregation in local communities,
representatives of the real estate industry then claimed they were merely
looking out for the ‘rights’ of their constituents and were innocent of any
complicity in discrimination. The purposeful deception underscored the
lengths to which industry representatives would go to preserve their
control over one of the most lucrative real estate markets in the country”
(Self 2003, 265)

63. MoragaOaklandSan Francisco

64. MoragaOaklandSan Francisco
Richmond

68. How have some – whites – “distanced themselves from both industrial pollution and
nonwhites?” (Laura Pulido, 2000, 14).

69. Such places “evoke a never-never land of Spanish California arcadia, a
dreamy suggestion of whitewashed missions set against rolling hills, their
red-tiled roofs glowing carmine in the sunset” (Kevin Starr, 1985, 191).

70. Such never-never lands only exist because they are part of a history of conquest and globalization

71. Such degraded landscapes only exist because they are part of a history of conquest and globalization

72. “All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals:
to account for the production of nature and environment,
and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures
and environments help shape social relations”
(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

73. “All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals:
to account for the production of nature and environment,
and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures
and environments help shape social relations”
(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

74. “All political ecologists set themselves two primary goals:
to account for the production of nature and environment,
and to understand the ways in which (produced) natures
and environments help shape social relations”
(Geoff Mann, 2009, 336, citing Robbins 2004)

76. Oakland
Moraga

77. Political ecology is motivated “primarily (but not
exclusively) [by a] social justice project” (Mann 2009, 337)

82. A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action
and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)

83. A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action
and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)
States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of
people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at
landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public
participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional
and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect
the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).

84. A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action
and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)
States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of
people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at
landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public
participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional
and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect
the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).

85. A landscape is “an area, as perceived by people whose character is the result of action
and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention)
States are obliged “to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of
people’s surroundings” and identities; “establish and implement policies aimed at
landscape protection, management and planning; create procedures for public
participation in management and preservation; and “integrate landscape into … regional
and town planning policies” as well as policies covering other practices that might affect
the landscape” (Déjeant-Pons 2006, 370).