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Cycles of Investment: Bicycle Infrastructure, Gentrification, and the Restructuring of the San Francisco Bay Area

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  • John Stehlin

    (Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, 507 McCone Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA)

Abstract

Bicycling for transportation in American cities has grown dramatically in the past twenty years, symbolizing the return of capital investment and commercial vitality to formerly disinvested urban cores. The cycling ‘renaissance’ taking place to the greatest extent in gentrifying neighborhoods has been noted, but the processes relating cycling and gentrification have gone largely unexplored. This paper examines the early role that bicycle advocacy organizations in San Francisco played in articulating the specifically economic value of bicycle infrastructure investment. This narrative is now commonplace, and widely applied both to neighborhood revitalization and urban competition for ‘talent’. This alliance of bicycle advocacy with the ‘livable’ turn of gentrification raises serious questions for those who would pursue a more democratic and socially just politics of the bicycle.

Suggested Citation

  • John Stehlin, 2015. "Cycles of Investment: Bicycle Infrastructure, Gentrification, and the Restructuring of the San Francisco Bay Area," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(1), pages 121-137, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:47:y:2015:i:1:p:121-137
    DOI: 10.1068/a130098p
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ralph Buehler & John Pucher, 2012. "Cycling to work in 90 large American cities: new evidence on the role of bike paths and lanes," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 409-432, March.
    2. Pucher, John & Buehler, Ralph & Seinen, Mark, 2011. "Bicycling renaissance in North America? An update and re-appraisal of cycling trends and policies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 451-475, July.
    3. Stephen E. Barton, 2011. "Land Rent and Housing Policy: A Case Study of the San Francisco Bay Area Rental Housing Market," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 845-873, October.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Osborne, Natalie & Grant-Smith, Deanna, 2017. "Constructing the cycling citizen: A critical analysis of policy imagery in Brisbane, Australia," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 44-53.
    3. Culver, Gregg, 2017. "Mobility and the making of the neoliberal “creative city”: The streetcar as a creative city project?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 22-30.
    4. Flanagan, Elizabeth & Lachapelle, Ugo & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2016. "Riding tandem: Does cycling infrastructure investment mirror gentrification and privilege in Portland, OR and Chicago, IL?," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 14-24.
    5. Craig A. Talmage & Chad Frederick, 2019. "Quality of Life, Multimodality, and the Demise of the Autocentric Metropolis: A Multivariate Analysis of 148 Mid-Size U.S. Cities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 365-390, January.

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