Having Your Trees and Living There Too: Approaches to Permanently Affordable Housing and Urban Greening in Baltimore City

Abstract

Many people in cities lack access to quality green space and permanently affordable housing. These socio-spatial inequalities result from people using predatory and hyper-extractive investments in housing to accumulate wealth at the expense of others. The mainstream environmental movement touts greening urban spaces as a fix for environmental and social injustices alike. However, greening’s potential benefits fall short—or are turned into drawbacks—unless people have control over what both greening and housing development looks like in their own neighborhoods. I explore the work of two land trusts in Baltimore City, one environmental land trust focused on green space and one community land trust working towards having equally robust programs for both green space and housing. My goal is to highlight the importance of working towards both green space and affordable housing access as interconnected issues, and to contribute to scholarship encouraging environmental organizations to engage with affordable housing groups.