Saving the Woods is Class Prejudice

I am more of a liberal now that I live on the east coast than I ever was when I lived on the west. Since arriving in Virginia I have undertaken more social action projects, initiated more challenging discussions and spent more time thinking about diversity issues than I ever did in a decade of living in LA. Admittedly, this is relative and hyperbole. Living in LA, you are submerged in diversity. You don't have to purposefully discuss or do anything to be drawn into the raging currents of social issues. In a small town in Virginia, one little speech, one little challenge to the PTA and you have seriously stirred the waters.

Most recently, I joined my neighbors in an effort to "Save the Woods". There is a small patch of woods behind our local shopping plaza in which my children and a few homeless individuals are known to play. The woods are targeted for rezoning and razing to make way for a mini-storage facility.

Woods are still sort of wonderment for my family. In Los Angeles, there is no thought of building a fort or hanging out until dusk with neighborhood kids. You might find a few trees in the canyons, but the nearest kid (that you actually know) is a good 25 minute commute away. In addition to the sentimental attachment to these woods, it also is a critical part of the neighborhood's character. It lines a small stretch of road that serves as the well-traveled short cut to the shopping center. Our little drive through the sun dappled woods is about to become a soulless commute past corrugated steel boxes. I had enough of that in LA. This would be a serious wound to the psyche, character, and all-important-property values of our mid to lower class neighborhood.

I joined the neighborhood Save the Woods militia. I emailed the planning commission board members and the county supervisors. I rallied some friends in the more affluent adjacent communities. I called the corporate offices of the plaza's largest tenant, a major grocery retailer. (They were responsive once we made them aware of the potential damage to a neighborhood in which they just invested a several hundred thousand dollar store remodel.) I went down to speak with the local principal of my daughter's middle school and was stopped in my tracks.

The principal was friendly and open during our discussion about the imperiled woods. I suggested that a decline in property value from the construction of the storage facility would negatively affect her school and asked if she would write a letter. She declined. A letter like that, she gently and professionally explained, would imply that the school was only there to serve a certain kind of student. And, considering the cross-section of families that attend the school, it would be hurtful.

It was as if the breath had been knocked out of me. I had never intended to shut out or stand upon any neighbor. (By the way, being unaware of the impact of one's actions is a classic foil for prejudice.) I know that there are many disadvantaged people in our school and neighborhood who are included in the benefit of the woods. In addition to the charm and beauty of the environment, maintaining property values maintains the tax base which maintains the school. I felt all our Save the Woods efforts were for the collective "we" who live here. However, in one deft move I was framed as the class elite, just another cog in systemic prejudice. Saving the woods now became class oppression. I felt sick.

It never occurred to me that fighting alongside my own low/middle class neighborhood for some green space and a future would be considered elitist. This seems to be the logic: maintaining value -- or worse, raising it -- bars entry to others resulting in systemic prejudice against the poor. It is a fact that the poor are predominantly non-white and/or disabled. It is also a fact that the poor already living here might have to move out if rents rise. Low property values permit unfettered access to almost any potential neighbor. This creates the ultimate equal access. Whether it is the wealthy nations who use their influence to keep the pollution of industry out of their back yards or those individuals in small communities who use their voices to save a patch of woods, they are oppressive. This line of accusatory logic ends up nowhere but in a dilution of all assets.

When I spoke up to save the woods, I was prepared to be challenged to balance the benefit to community with the cost to business. I was not prepared to account for the benefit to one neighbor at the cost to another. If the woods are saved, some people win, some people loose. Even if everyone in my neighborhood wins, those who would like to move in will lose. Still, it seems ludicrous to be trapped by this paradox. It is intolerable to allow the razing of the woods out of an insatiable existential guilt that, if you follow the logic, ultimately extends to every human being on the planet. I did attend the planning commission meeting and we swung the vote in our favor. I am glad we saved the woods and I know there is more negotiation ahead with the landlord. I do not know how to address the potentially barred neighbor. Maybe I am not so liberal after all.