Green Gentrification: Rochester’s Inner Loop

By Katherine Scott

Community development is an essential part of creating a more sustainable society. The way that most cities currently operate is not efficient and is generally detrimental to the environment. To change that, city planners, architects, and legislators will scope out spaces that can be re-utilized into something more sustainable. They develop plans to create more walkable cities to reduce the amount of time an average commuter has to spend in a car, or they’ll create larger plots of land for trees and other vegetation to create “green space” in a city.

These are great ideas, but the plans often overlook what is already in front of them. City planners and legislators often tear down what already exists to create green spaces or more walkable cities. By doing so, they discount the residents who live in that community.

The major factor that often goes under looked, or that gets reduced to a small net loss, is the economic impact that “greening” the city will have on the current residents. Too often, those residents are low-income and disproportionately people of color. For example, New York City converted an abandoned subway track into a lovely park for people to walk on, called the High Line. This park includes modern art, plenty of plants and flowers, and an incredible view of the city. However, many parts of the High Line are surrounded by resident housing (as is most of New York City). Any residential housing adjacent to the High Line raised housing values by 35%. The increase displaced current residents and keeps out anyone who cannot meet the new economic norm.

This is the process known as green gentrification. Cities have big aspirations of creating a sustainable community but end up displacing low-income residents. This happens all over the country, but more specifically, it is happening right now in Rochester, New York.

Marketview Heights is a community in Rochester that has existed for generations. Members of the Marketview Heights community want to keep the community’s sense of place and are skeptical about the incoming teardown of Inner Loop North. Sense of place is the attachment that one has to their home and to their community. When there is not a strong connection to the community, people tend to not treat the space very well. Renters who move into the places built in place of the Inner Loop often do not have a strong connection to their community. Residents fear losing this sense of place, especially given what they have already experienced from the Inner Loop East project.

In the place of Inner Loop East, where part of the highway used to run, are towering modernized apartment buildings for renters. It is quite a juxtaposition from the houses just across the river that have been standing for generations. When asked about the change, Suzanna Mayer, of the local Non-profit Hinge Neighborhoods, said, “They got rid of a moat, and built a wall.”

The city of Rochester, New York, has just recently received a substantial grant from the state to tear down another part of the Inner Loop–a highway that has segregated the downtown Rochester community since the 1960s. From the perspective of an observer of the downtown Rochester community, this is a great success. The city of Rochester is achieving its goal of tearing down the eye-sore highway, making downtown Rochester a more walkable city, and creating “. . .safer streets, bike lanes, green spaces, and good paying local construction jobs. . ..” to quote Senator Chuck Schumer when interviewed for the City of Rochester website. This seems like a great environmental win for the city. Some residents of Marketview Heights, the community right down the street from the recent Inner Loop East construction, disagree.

Renters who move into the places built in place of the Inner Loop often do not have a strong connection to their community.

A solution to this inevitable paradox: Consider what the people already living in that community have to say about developing their community. The experts in community development are the people who live there. No one can create a better place for a person when they have no idea of the needs of that person and their community. Take into consideration that there could be more community-building events or what they can do to encourage renters to consider long-term living.

The “wall” that Inner Loop East built was not just a physical, aesthetic divide but a social divide as well. There must be a plan to incorporate the current Marketview Heights community into the new one created by the Inner Loop project; a plan to create opportunities for the people coming into the community and especially opportunities for its current residents. The architects of the Inner Loop project should build upon what is already in the community and listen to the residents’ input and ideas.