Analyze

I used the analytic question to do a quick survey of open or civic data infrastructure in St. Louis. The city's open data portal features a database on their strategic land use program (SLUP), initiated in 2005, and an overview of sustainability initiatives in relation to land use. 

I then looked further into current developments or articulations for civic data infrastructures based on this available data. A recent example is STL Vacancy, an initiative that is prototyping a map/database that displays information on vacant land in St. Louis. This news report (Walker 2018) provides figures on vacant lands in St. Louis, a background to the initiatives emergence and a first look at the prototype. According to the report, there are 20,187 vacant properties (half of them belonging to the city), which create a total of $17 million in yearly maintenance costs for the city. Further, the need to map and visualize these properties was picked up during the first "hackathon" in 2017 and carried forward by the OpenSTL group in a public-private partnership with other institutions. The article mentions that the map draws on a total of 12 data sources: “Seven data sets come from the city’s building division; two from the Land Reutilization Authority; and more from the assessor’s office on taxes and property values and the forestry department which maintains vacant land" (Walker 2018). The initiative's goal is to "provide tools to community stakeholders in order to work together more efficiently; to keep properties on the tax roll; reduce vacancy; and get properties back into productive use faster" (ibid). The article also links to an online guide that should "help local government officials, neighborhood associations, community-based nonprofits, residents, business owners, and other stakeholders better understand how to work together to use existing tools to address vacant property in the City of St. Louis."

This seems to be an interesting case for how civic/open infrastructure is currently imagined and developed. Interestingly, the discourse and arguments are driven by an economic incentive to make better use of the vacant lots, while questions of urban sustainability or our understand of anthropocenics seem to be less prominent.

The history of racialized exclusion to both social power and land tenure and homeownership has shaped how bodies are differentially impacted by land use in NOLA. This entire history could (and probably already is) a topic for a dissertation, but one case I found particularly interesting involved the Army Corps of Engineers' 2007 creation of an online database in which residents can find the "flood potential" faced by their homes (http://nolarisk.usace.army.mil/ --unfortunately no longer up).  While this database was hailed as a landmark achievement in providing NOLA residents with their "right to know" about the risks in their neighborhoods, only a few remarked on what the data actually showed: that in the two years following the flood predominantly white neighborhoods had experienced 4-6 feet of flood reduction, black neighborhoods had experienced little to no flood reduction whatsoever. 

This reminds me of a more general entanglement of racialized disparities, historical disinvestment and inequitable distribution of risk in America, which as Anna Clark so summarily puts it (in respect lead": "lead is one toxic legacy in America's cities. Another is segregation, redlining, and rebranding: this is the art and craft of exclusion. We built it into the bones of our cities as surely as we laid lead pipes."  

Department of Interior agencies that manage federal lands (BLM, USFS, NPS) have educational programs for school students and visitors to public lands presenting relatively manicured histories of the places from both natural (biological, geological) and cultural history points of view. These forms of education do not necessarily encourage a reflective capacity for examining land use. In some instances, the multi-use aspect of these areas is treated as a taken-for-granted characteristic of the spaces while at other times multiple-use is somewhat obscured or omitted in favor of highlighting spaces as natural and carrying value in their own right as ecosystems/as places to visit specifically for the enjoyment of natural spaces.

In general there seems that the conflicts surrounding public lands themselves are rarely the focus or topic of educational programs. Furthermore, the historical and political conditions that contribute to such conflict or that create challenges for management, though recognized by some individuals within agencies, do not appear to be incorporated explicitly into educational programs.

Some questions that remain and require further ethnographic exploration are who else is educating people (education broadly conceived) about the areas that fall into the category of federal public lands? For instance, many local residents who are members of the LDS church hold negative attitudes toward the federal government but highly value these spaces and regularly camp, fish, hike, bike, and hunt on public lands. Who/what informs their knowledge and relation to these spaces? What education about these spaces and about the environment occurs through the LDS church?

With repeated instances of ignoring indigenous presence and claims to territory, the area now considered federal public lands in Utah is part of a large multi-state area that was Mexican territory until the 1848 Mexican Cession. Brigham Young and the group of LDS church members traveling with him to settle in the area arrived shortly before this land became part of the U.S. public domain. Whereas the Mormon immigrants to the area had originally sought to build a separate society from the mainstream U.S., church leaders ultimately pushed for statehood, viewing such legal status as potentially useful because state governemnt could provide a degree of autonomy. In early attempts to achieve statehood, the church set up an interim government--when that appeal for statehood was denied, that government somewhat continued despite not being formally/legally recognized by the U.S. Eventually in 1896, Utah was declared a state, shortly after a representative of the LDS church renounced the church's previous encouragement of plural marriage.

The state government that then formed and continues into the present is understood to be tightly entwined with the LDS church, with non-Mormon residents speaking cynically of the ways that their voices are ignored because they aren't LDS. Despites a strong sense of states' rights, 66.5% of land in Utah is federally-owned, thus federal agencies have a significant presence in the area. The overall high percentages of federally-owned land in the West (47% of western states) is a result of the geographic and climatic conditions that made many areas difficult to travel to and unsuitable for significant agricultural development, meaning many areas were not transferred out of federal hands through homestead policies or land grants. The areas remaining in federal ownership were, for many decades, used by ranchers rather freely until the formalization of bureaucratic procedures for permitting use of these spaces in the mid 20th century. While ownership has not shifted out of federal hands since mid-19th century acquisition, such changes as the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act and various changes to land status through legislative wilderness designation (as laied out by the 1964 Wilderness Act) and executive action (as enabled by the 1906 Antiquities Act) have resulted in changes to use and the permits required for such economic uses as cattle grazing in ways that are described as "federal land grabs," as a removal or taking away of land from locals and from the state.

The federal public lands under contention in southern Utah are adjacent to communities that hold significant anti-federal sentiment, in what appear to be two primary forms. One is a stance of anti-federal patriotism/nationalism, in which  people view the federal government as tyrannical but cast the government as explicitly in opposition to the ideals of America. This perspective is seen in the militia movements that exist across western states and has been exhibited more publicly in instances such as the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada or the 2016 Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. Another perspective present in communities near these federal lands is one of a refusal to recognize the federal governmant as a legitimate governing institution and the recognition of the church as the legitimate formation of government. This perpsective is primarily circumscribed to fundamentalist LDS communities, a number of which exist adjacent to federal public lands in southern Utah. In both of these perspectives there is a general disregard for the notion of the federal government as a legitimate owner of these lands and, by extension, as a legitimate manager and adjudicator of use.

One interesting example of land use education that I found is the Whitney Plantation Museum in Wallace, LA--about an hour north of New Orleans proper and right on the banks of the Mississippi River. The museum is, according to its website, "the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people." The 2,000 acre property was once a sugarcane plantation that operated from 1752 until well into the 19th century, with over 350 enslaved persons working on it during this period. 

The museum was founded in 2014 by John Cummings, who has spent more than $8 million of his own fortune on this long-term project, and worked on it for nearly 15 years.[ The director of research is Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar who has done much work on the history of slavery. These two seem to be the primary organizers of education in the musuem which focuses on how land in the Lower Mississippi was organized towards the cultivation of Sugar. 

Right off the bat, it is interesting that this museum is completely financed by a private citizen. I've looked up other plantation museums in the region and for the most part they see to all be privately run. Also, contrast the focus on slavery at Whitney to the Oak Alley plantation museum's celebration of a family legacy of sugar planters: "Hold fast to that which is good...."

The arid climatic conditions of much of southern Utah (and the American West more generally) have shaped the landscape in terms of land tenure. Much of the land that remained in federal ownership did so because it went unclaimed through such legislative efforts as the Homestead Act of 1864 and following homestead-related bills due to its lack of suitability for successful agriculture. This same dry climate means that cattle (and other livestock) grazing required massive amounts of space to have adequate vegetation, significantly more than is required in wetter climates. Consequently, successful ranching in this region essentially requires access to public lands, as few individuals would be able to own enough land on which to sufficiently raise cattle. This livelihood has had impacts on the ecological conditions of these spaces, as cattle shape the landscape by reducing vegetation and increasing erosion.

[TBC...]

The geologic formations of the Colorado Plateau have implications for land use in a number of ways. There are oil and mineral deposits that make some areas of federal public lands of particular interest for regulations that make it easy to lease/permit resource extractions and/or encourage calls for transfer to state hands or privatization. Additionally, this area's geologic features are part of what make it so appealing to tourists--awe-striking landscapes have encouraged the creation of many national parks and national monuments that highlight the geology (as well as the archaeological material highlighting Native American presence in/on the geologic formations), such as Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Monument Valley, Pink Cliffs, etc.

My perception is that there are a number of individuals who have been engaged in federal public land use and management for decades who have an incredibly vast knowledge of and reflective perspective toward public lands issues, but that at the institutional/organizational level things get simplified into stakeholder language that flattens the complexities of the situation and that a variety of points of view get taken-for-granted as obvious, natural, or inherently right/good. From individuals who have sought to work within agencies I've heard tales of frustration of the obstacles to effective and flexible management created by bureaucratic structures and political timescales, as well as the frustration of working in a space where many visions of good governance and use exist and long-standing tensions seem to discourage desires to build alliances or compromises. These individuals, some retired and some still working, have opted for trying to further their own understandings of what good management is through their individual actions, aiming to do the best they can in the structures that exist, rather than trying to rock or restructure the boat they are in.

Many agency employees responsible for managing wilderness and other recreation areas seem acutely aware of the challenges of regulating land use that arise from misaligned and permeable boundaries in space and legal designation--that is, the rules guiding use in any particular space have the potential to affect other spaces that may or may not have the same designations. Beyond just wilderness/non-wilderness or monument/non-monument designations, land uses on prviate land can impact public lands due to the interconnectedness of ecosystems and watersheds.

The broader impacts of oil and gas drilling on public lands (e.g. through greenhouse gas emissions) and the impact of climate change on public lands ecosystems and future use appear in discourses produced somewhat distant to these spaces (e.g. at UC Irvine) and circulate online, but my perception is that this multi-directional connection to broader global and regional earth system processes has been thus far on the margins of public lands management debates in southern Utah.

Land use on federal public lands in southern Utah ranges from oil and mineral extraction by private companies that have received leases from the U.S. government, to ranchers who also must go through a permitting process to graze their cattle on public lands, to subsistence users (e.g. hunting, fishing, firewood collection, plant collecting), to local and tourist recreators who hike, bike, camp, drive off-road vehicles, canyoneer, climb, etc.

These varying uses are regulated based on the agency responsible for an area's management and on its designation (e.g. as general BLM or USFS land, as national monument, as wilderness, etc.). BLM land especially (and to some extent national forests) are intended to be multi-use spaces, but such regulations (for instance, wilderness designations that allow hiking and equestrian use but prohibit bicycles and off-road vehicles) antagonize relationships between different land users.

Department of Interior agencies such as BLM and USFS seek to take into account public perspectives in managing public lands for multiple-use through the creation of advisory councils (US Fish and Wildlife Service also does this), the positions of which are divided into specific land-user/"stakeholder" categories such as recreational land users, commercial tourist companies, extractive industry representatives, BLM staff, and so on. One area for further ethnographic exploration is examining how/whether these advisory councils actually shape public lands management--they do hold votes on whether to recommend particular policies to federal agencies but by all appearances these council polls simply communicate a recommendation and are not binding in any way. Additionally, as this is one way in which members of "the public" are included in a formalized way (this is a position people must apply for, be accepted to, hold for a certain length term, and participate in a specific number of meetings), I am curious to know whether this avenue for public participation (or for the communication of public perspectives through representatives) is perceived as an effective or meaningful inclusion of multiple perspectives and interests. Another facet of public participation has been BLM hearings and city/county council hearings, which seem to be predominantly perceived as futile engagement that merely stokes community-level conflict. In communities where a number of people may hold anti-federal sentiment, is a system of advisory councils run by federal agencies perceived as desirable or effective?