Green growth machines, LEED ratings and value free development: the case of the Philadelphia property tax abatement

Abstract

In this paper we examine an attempt in Philadelphia in 2009 to alter a popular and longstanding city property tax abatement program by connecting it to LEED building standards. We argue that the attempt to change the property tax abatement was an attempt by an insurgent growth coalition – what we call a ‘green growth machine' – to capture a greater proportion of the returns from land investment from the city's traditional growth machine. LEED was an important tool in the green growth machine's strategy, because the rating system has become a means by which growth machines have established green building as a component of the ideology of value free development. The attempt to alter the property tax abatement limited the extent to which LEED could be used as a tool in the construction of an ideology of value free development, which suggests both the limits to the power of that ideology, and how components of that ideology might be used to challenge a traditional growth machine.