UCLA

There is a movement underway in Los Angeles led by community groups, non-profits, and local officials to combat environmental racism with the creation of new public parks and greenspaces. This is a dramatic change in the city's land use priorities. In this paper, I situate the current round of park development within the literature on environmental racism and the siting of industry activities and their attendant linear circulation infrastructure in predominately low-income and minority communities. Utilizing Kevin Lynch's classifications of urban forms, this paper demonstrates three typologies for park interventions on linear infrastructure--parkways, nodal parks, and cap parks--and how they would operate upon Pacoima Wash.