Infrastructure tells a material story of ongoing challenges in cities, reflecting the diverse, normative desires of different communities. In this article we examine the introduction of green infrastructure technologies into urban infrastructure systems to think critically about these challenges and desires. Green infrastructure is an intentionally designed, multifunctional technology that directly uses or mimics the ecological processes of soils and plants (e.g., green rooftops, rain gardens, and bioswales). Facing budget shortfalls as well as demands to mitigate hazards and green the city, urban leaders are looking at green infrastructure as a facility that can provide diverse cobenefits along with traditional services. A focus on stormwater-based metrics, however—effectively reframing green infrastructure as green stormwater infrastructure—discursively tamps down alternative politics and desires for the city. Through a case study of Pittsburgh’s stormwater governance, we argue that the work to (re)technologize green infrastructure as green stormwater infrastructure is an act of depoliticization that hinders needed conversations about just infrastructure outcomes. We draw on themes from qualitative interviews with community members engaged in urban water governance to suggest that these moments of transition provide an opportunity to illuminate previously obscured infrastructure politics and challenge the forms of knowledge that bind us to conventional routines of urban environmental governance. We see an opportunity to reframe the conversation in a way that opens up opportunities for historically disenfranchised communities to voice their needs beyond the technocratic problem of stormwater management.

This paper develops theoretical insight from the rapid development of the coastal town of Bluffton, South Carolina. Bluffton has experienced rapid growth and development over the past 15 years, associated with the amenity-based migration of tourists, second homeowners, and retirees. The local management strategies that dominate regional development often project visions of coastal growth around the possibility of healthy environments and strong economies. The debates around these strategies have centred on the sustainability of development and environmental change, and have contributed to the production of amenity-based landscapes. However, I argue that these debates enforce normative ideals for “good” and “bad” development, which materially and discursively reinforce forms of inequality on the landscape. In particular, this paper will show how contrasts between new development projects and existing communities normalise certain city-building strategies that obscure, or even legitimise, race and class inequalities. Consideration of development/environment debates and the landscapes they help to produce provide an opportunity to envision an alternative future that emphasises social and ecological justice.