Resisting green gentrification: Seattle’s South Park neighborhood struggles for environmental justice

In Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, residents strive to maintain the character of their tight-knit, largely minority community amidst citywide gentrification pressures. After decades of neglect and environmental struggles, the city continues to clean up the Superfund site along the adjacent Duwamish River while finally implementing several infrastructure, park and public space improvements. In addition, in 2014 the new South Park Bridge connecting South Park to other parts of the city was completed, replacing the dilapidated bridge condemned in 2010. Those physical improvements have facilitated rapid change in the neighborhood at a time when few affordable neighborhoods remain in Seattle and South Park attracts city-dwellers seeking a small-town feel. Vulnerable residents are having to balance priorities with limited and minority-driven organizing resources, often feeling forced to prioritize affordable housing over the threat of extreme environmental hazards that have long plagued the mixed industrial and residential neighborhood.