Amy Krings
The goal of my research agenda is to develop innovative, impactful, community-based, and transdisciplinary environmental justice research. Drawing from critical theory and analysis, my work explores the causes and consequences of environmental injustices including why and how members of marginalized communities come together, strategically and collaboratively, to prevent, mitigate, and resist environmental injustice. My research reveals opportunities for political and social change to support health equity and social justice.
My research is informed by six years of practice as a community organizer, grant-writer, and interim Executive Director at a Cincinnati non-profit dedicated to racial justice and police reform. My PhD is from the Social Work and Political Science Joint Doctoral Program at the University of Michigan.
My research is informed by six years of practice as a community organizer, grant-writer, and interim Executive Director at a Cincinnati non-profit dedicated to racial justice and police reform. My PhD is from the Social Work and Political Science Joint Doctoral Program at the University of Michigan.
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Papers by Amy Krings
• Brownfields cleanup correlated with environmental gentrification.
• Changes in overall green areas not correlated with environmental gentrification.
• More concern about environmental gentrification in Hispanic than Black neighborhoods.
• More concern about disinvestment and displacement in Black neighborhoods.
• Multi-faceted, equity-oriented strategies needed to avoid displacement.
Abstract
Environmental contamination and limited access to green spaces disproportionately burden communities of color with negative impacts on residents’ health. Yet, cleaning up contamination and creating green spaces has in some cases been associated with displacing long-term residents as the neighborhood becomes desirable to more affluent, often Whiter, populations through environmental gentrification. We used mixed methods to investigate environmental gentrification in the city of Chicago, IL, USA. We examined quantitatively the relationship between green areas, brownfield cleanups, and indicators of gentrification, including race and ethnicity, income, households without children, and home ownership. We explored through qualitative interviews how key informants perceive the risk and impacts of environmental gentrification. We found that brownfields cleanup is statistically correlated with proportionately fewer Hispanic residents and more White residents. We did not find any significant correlation between green area and demographic change with the exception of an elevated rail trail linear park. These results align with a racialized process of gentrification, described by some key informants, whereby racial stereotypes lead White newcomers to feel more comfortable moving into Hispanic than Black neighborhoods. The interview results also suggested that racialized disinvestment drives the displacement of people of color, especially African-Americans, from their communities and serves as a precursor for gentrification. These results add to a growing body of evidence that interventions to prevent environmental gentrification will need to be context-specific, multi-faceted, equity-centered, and ideally occur early on within disinvested communities before gentrification takes hold.
The Equiticity framework asks: How do you approach social and political change? Its horizontal axis asks participants to consider: When it comes to social change work, do you tend to be a builder or a burner? The vertical axis asks: Do you tend to gravitate toward working for change inside or outside of organizations? Thus, in this thinking exercise, respondents might favor building alternative and just structures, policies, and programs or “burning” down oppressive ones, and they might favor doing so by creating change from within oppressive organizations or by pushing on them from the outside.
researchers, policy makers, and practitioners are likely to focus on changes in land and home values, reducing the adverse effects of gentrification to a loss of affordable housing. A singular focus on affordable housing risks paying insufficient attention to racial
struggle, perpetuating damage-based views of poor people and neighborhoods, and obfuscating political, social, and cultural displacements. Social work practice—including social action group work, community organizing, community development, and participatory
research and planning—offers a holistic approach to understanding, resisting, and responding to gentrification and advance equitable development in the city. By exploring social work practice that amplifies residents’ and change
makers’ efforts, advances existing community organizing, produces new insights, builds inter-neighborhood and interdisciplinary collaborations, and facilitates social action and policy change, this paper helps community practitioners to reimagine the role of social work research and practice in gentrifying neighborhoods.
• Brownfields cleanup correlated with environmental gentrification.
• Changes in overall green areas not correlated with environmental gentrification.
• More concern about environmental gentrification in Hispanic than Black neighborhoods.
• More concern about disinvestment and displacement in Black neighborhoods.
• Multi-faceted, equity-oriented strategies needed to avoid displacement.
Abstract
Environmental contamination and limited access to green spaces disproportionately burden communities of color with negative impacts on residents’ health. Yet, cleaning up contamination and creating green spaces has in some cases been associated with displacing long-term residents as the neighborhood becomes desirable to more affluent, often Whiter, populations through environmental gentrification. We used mixed methods to investigate environmental gentrification in the city of Chicago, IL, USA. We examined quantitatively the relationship between green areas, brownfield cleanups, and indicators of gentrification, including race and ethnicity, income, households without children, and home ownership. We explored through qualitative interviews how key informants perceive the risk and impacts of environmental gentrification. We found that brownfields cleanup is statistically correlated with proportionately fewer Hispanic residents and more White residents. We did not find any significant correlation between green area and demographic change with the exception of an elevated rail trail linear park. These results align with a racialized process of gentrification, described by some key informants, whereby racial stereotypes lead White newcomers to feel more comfortable moving into Hispanic than Black neighborhoods. The interview results also suggested that racialized disinvestment drives the displacement of people of color, especially African-Americans, from their communities and serves as a precursor for gentrification. These results add to a growing body of evidence that interventions to prevent environmental gentrification will need to be context-specific, multi-faceted, equity-centered, and ideally occur early on within disinvested communities before gentrification takes hold.
The Equiticity framework asks: How do you approach social and political change? Its horizontal axis asks participants to consider: When it comes to social change work, do you tend to be a builder or a burner? The vertical axis asks: Do you tend to gravitate toward working for change inside or outside of organizations? Thus, in this thinking exercise, respondents might favor building alternative and just structures, policies, and programs or “burning” down oppressive ones, and they might favor doing so by creating change from within oppressive organizations or by pushing on them from the outside.
researchers, policy makers, and practitioners are likely to focus on changes in land and home values, reducing the adverse effects of gentrification to a loss of affordable housing. A singular focus on affordable housing risks paying insufficient attention to racial
struggle, perpetuating damage-based views of poor people and neighborhoods, and obfuscating political, social, and cultural displacements. Social work practice—including social action group work, community organizing, community development, and participatory
research and planning—offers a holistic approach to understanding, resisting, and responding to gentrification and advance equitable development in the city. By exploring social work practice that amplifies residents’ and change
makers’ efforts, advances existing community organizing, produces new insights, builds inter-neighborhood and interdisciplinary collaborations, and facilitates social action and policy change, this paper helps community practitioners to reimagine the role of social work research and practice in gentrifying neighborhoods.
Using the theoretical lens of social movement theory, we present our case studies to describe the issues confronting these groups and their processes for achieving their visions. The goal of this chapter is to provide concrete examples of current environmental justice organizing efforts, an analysis of factors that influence both their success and development, and a discussion of how an understanding of social movement theory may provide useful insight for future efforts.
solving urban financial crises. Rather, historically oppressed groups—and African Americans in particular—tend to absorb its costs. We conclude by considering what the Flint water crisis suggests about policy mechanisms that might prevent future environmental health crises, outlining the role of social workers in this process.