An Alternative Design Template for Green Infrastructure Projects to Help Mitigate Environmental Gentrification

Abstract

Gentrification has existed throughout history as a result of infrastructure projects that seek to bring economic value and beauty to an area. Soon after the completion of these projects, property values tend to increase significantly and can have the effect of displacing many disadvantaged community members who can no longer afford these housing units. A new term called “environmental gentrification” is being used to characterize the systematic displacement of low-income families as their access to newly-built green spaces becomes limited within the urban landscape. By focusing on a specific case study occurring along a nature trail in Chicago, Illinois, this research identifies the main barriers that green infrastructure projects create and provides alternative solutions to help mitigate this type of gentrification. This particular site has the unique feature of containing a 100-year-old railway bridge which was rehabilitated to accommodate users of the trail and provide an artistic addition to the city’s landscape. Through a computational analysis of this bridge’s unique layout, this thesis highlights the structural behavior of this network tied arch bridge that has each of its three arches starting at different positions along the entire span. The uncommon design of the Milwaukee Avenue Bridge results in an uncommon deflection pattern which brings into question the structural innovation underlying this bridge that was seemingly built for aesthetic purposes. In this Thesis, we determine that both this elevated trail and rehabilitated bridge play an integral role in serving in the surrounding communities which provides researchers with insight into how infrastructure projects such as these have the ability to either exacerbate or mitigate existing racial tensions and social issues in the urban framework.