"The Giddy Rise of the Environmentalists": Corporate Real Estate Development and Environmental Politics in San Diego, California, 1968–73. (19th November 2013) - Wiese, Andrew
Abstract: Changes in US real estate development during the 1960s and early 1970s were a catalyst for popular environmentalism. New flows of capital between builders and investors, including direct investment by Fortune 500 companies and the growth of the first nationwide home-building firms, produced a historic peak in US construction between 1969 and 1973. A case study of San Diego, California, indicates that these changes played a key role in the era's burst of environmental reform. It also reveals an entangled history of environmental and taxpayer politics rooted in the spatial and financial changes of accelerated real estate development. In San Diego, the corporate real estate boom brought together environmental concerns with taxpayer anxieties to produce a right-leaning environmental backlash that would have long influence in the city.