Researchers say that bird species are remarkably segregated.

October 17, 2023 10:25 AM

How L.A.’s bird population is shaped by historic redlining and racist loan practices

[No Paywall link]

posted by kaibutsu (12 comments total)

Thank you for posting this. It should have been obvious to me as an environmental planner. For example, I'm well aware of the disparities in tree canopy between neighborhoods that were redlined and those that were not. We often talk about the environmental burdens this has created in other terms—extreme heat, flooding, air quality—but not the ecological ramifications. As is the case with all human activity, redlining affected more than just us, inscribing racism in earthly processes. Environmental justice is a good framework but has much more work to do.
posted by criticalyeast at 1:08 PM on October 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

As an environmental researcher, when we say racism shapes everything, I mean everything.

This is predictable from well studied patterns of urban canopy as an amenity.

Free the land
posted by eustatic at 2:13 PM on October 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

This is sadly not surprising to this environmental geographer and avid birder. It's very good to see someone doing the work to really connect bird diversity to redlining in a concrete way. I'm also heartened by the conservation groups near me that are working in New Jersey's urban areas, which have long been underserved by such efforts. Birds aren't the primary focus of these groups, but they are conscious of the fact that some of their efforts directly impact birds as well the communities they're trying to serve, and that they can help birds while meeting their goals.
posted by mollweide at 3:52 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I live around the corner from San Marino in a transitional residential/industrial/commercial neighborhood and even here you can see the change between the two neighborhoods.

(San Marino is the sort of town that patrols its city parks on the weekends and makes non-residents pay a fee. Oh and don't park a pickup truck in your driveway)
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:39 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

As someone who is not an environmental planner/geographer/researcher or birder, this is astonishing. Just... astonishing. Thank you so much for posting it. I would have just assumed that the birds went wherever they wanted to go. I never considered things like the tree canopy or seeds or other food sources or whatever. Astonishing. (It probably sounds like i'm being sarcastic. I am not. I just can't get over this.)
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:46 PM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is a brilliant article (thus, posting it) - one of these ideas which is obvious and natural as soon as you voice it.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:22 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

As someone whose work centers around trying to redress the harms of redlining & a birder, this was one of those things that's totally obvious in retrospect but kind of mind-blowing that someone brought the two together and actually spelled it all out since I had never stopped to think about it. I've shared with my work bird group, so thank you for posting this!
posted by snaw at 2:52 AM on October 18, 2023

No paywall.
San Marino is 66% Asian, so the “ typically whiter” description doesn’t apply.
LAT used to have good science and environmental writers.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:12 AM on October 18, 2023

I mean, San Marino is in a lot of ways "Asian Beverly Hills" (so described by the Chinese kids I met when I lived next door to Cal Tech), but that's why the article keeps using verbiage like "typically whiter".

San Marino is a convenient target for this report because it's a small insular enclave that's well defined and completely in a greenline zone while being radically different wealth and land cover wise from nearby Boyle Heights.

Probably would have been closer to use say South Pas, but the economic differences between aren't as stark ($110k median household in South Pas vs. Boyle Heights at $49k vs San Marino at $164k). Plus, I'm not sure I'm reading the map correctly, but it oddly looks like much of South Pas was yellow. Maybe using the Arroyo area of Pas?
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:30 AM on October 18, 2023

Boyle Heights is also got a lot more freeways and industrial areas, so comparing with San Marino isn’t really accurate.
Boyle Heights started as a Jewish neighborhood—hmmmm….
Pasadena has parrots— how do those figure in?
2010 story on urban birds.
LAT story reads like it was reported by text, not actual observation.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:40 AM on October 18, 2023

Boyle Heights is also got a lot more freeways and industrial areas

Minority neighbourhoods were much, much more likely to be broken up and bulldozed for freeways in most American cities, so that's one of the mechanisms leading from redlining to different bird populations.
posted by clawsoon at 11:44 AM on October 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is so directly relevant to a project I'm working on at the moment, it's hard to believe. Thank you.
posted by Hogshead at 6:05 AM on October 19, 2023