Climate change and green gentrification
By Manning Zhang
Gentrification was initially used as a perspective and tool to explain the capital reinvestment in decaying urban neighborhoods and attract the new urban middle class (Zuk et al., 2018). In 1979, Philips Clay introduced a classic, class-based gentrification model. He posited that gentrification comprises four stages: the movement of pioneers to less expensive areas, the arrival of the middle class, the takeover of the space by the middle class, and finally, the transformation of the landscape to benefit the wealthy and developers (Clay, 1979). Clay described it as an alternative for neighborhood revitalization that results in incumbent upgrading and the displacement of long-term residents (Zuk et al., 2018). Although Clay was the initial individual to delineate this process, the term "gentrification" was employed as far back as 1964 by the Marxist sociologist Ruth Glass. She describes gentrification as the influx of both lower- and upper-middle-class people into working-class neighborhoods and their practices in transforming the infrastructure in the rapidly changing, postwar London urban core, such as replacing workshops and independent retail stores with high-end offices and chain supermarkets (Glass, 1964; Johnson-Schlee, 2019; Staley, 2018; Zuk et al., 2018). Six decades have passed since Clay first introduced the concept of gentrification. Scholars of different traditions contribute insight on how to understand the power dynamics behind this social phenomenon.
Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana (2022) accentuates the presence of racial capitalism, an economic system where racial and ethnic demographics are involved in defining the value of a neighborhood with racial composition greatly influencing the gentrifiers' decision-making. Rucks-Ahidiana reveals how race is embedded in neighborhood valuations, coinciding with what Zukin (1987) refers to as "cultural" preferences. Nevertheless, uncertainties persist regarding whether cultural factors, beyond racial hierarchy, influence people's assessment of residential areas. Rucks-Ahidiana contrasts White in-movers’ value of performative diversity, with Black and Latinx in-movers’ value of racialized culture preservation, illustrating the nuances in the racialized valuation process.
While racial capitalism is a powerful argument, it may not capture the full complexity of valuation. Rucks-Ahidiana briefly mentioned that “the difference in valuation does not mean that Black and Latinx gentrification has no negative consequences on low-income communities, it does mean that Black and Latinx gentrifiers can exhibit a more explicit effort to preserve the racialized culture and racial composition of the neighborhood (2022, p.183)”. To better understand gentrification, it is worth exploring conflicts in values within the same racial or ethnic groups and examining how health is racialized and capitalized in urban space valuation.
A person’s health is not only impacted by access to medical resources but also by the ecological environment. This point makes the concept of green gentrification worthy of exploration. Isabelle Anguelovski situates green gentrification as a paradox within environmental justice: environmental justice includes revitalizing the neighborhoods that are influenced by toxic waste and contaminating facilities. However, the improved neighborhood attracts private developers and triggers the displacement of underprivileged residents, including low-income people and people of color (Anguelovski, 2015, p. 1210). While the term ecological gentrification captures this paradox, green gentrification is more specific about the consequences of establishing green amenities in reshaping neighborhood compositions (Rigolon & Németh, 2020). With a focus on urban parks, such as the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston and High Line Park in New York City (Anguelovski et al., 2019; Loughran, 2014), green gentrification scholarships illustrate how non-residential space-making practices play a role in determining the value of residential areas. These points prompt researchers to rethink the meaning behind the concept of the neighborhood.
According to Anguelovski et al., critical urban planning and urban geography studies on the relationship between marginalized groups and green infrastructure can be categorized into three areas: access inequalities to green space, emotional and identity barriers faced when accessing green space, and exclusion from decision-making related to green space. (Anguelovski et al., 2019, pp. 1067–1068). The first area has been widely studied. For instance, Kevin Loughran (2014; 2020) conducted ethnography and historical case studies to explore how the design of urban parks, such as the High Line Park in New York City, promotes discreet surveillance and exclusion of marginalized groups, while securing the elite, exotic green enclave. Loughran also examined the rationale of the park designer and municipal decision-makers. Using Chicago’s Olmsted-designed South Park as an example, he contends that green projects have historically been used as a “cultural fix” to mitigate social crises such as racial crimes in urban space (Loughran, 2020).
Loughran’s argument aligns with Katherine Kocisky (2022) ’s proposal for a “more-than-human” account to study green gentrification. Some scholars advocate for a “just green enough” approach in urban design. They argue that by creating smaller parks and other environmentally friendly infrastructure that can produce job opportunities for long-term residents, there can be a compromise solution that balances the needs of the community and urban greening projects (Curran & Hamilton, 2012, 2017; Kocisky, 2022; Wolch et al., 2014). Kocisky critiques this approach, arguing that it overemphasizes the interactions between elites and long-term residents near green spaces while overlooking its potential effect on perpetuating dynamic injustice and resistance (Kocisky, 2022, p. 656). Unlike other critiques that detail gentrification’s causal relationship with green spaces (Anguelovski et al., 2022; Pearsall & Eller, 2020; Rigolon & Németh, 2020), Kocisky’s approach highlights its episodic and multidirectional nature. Recognizing the conflicts and activism surrounding green infrastructure, the elite-led “cultural fix” narratives should be avoided, as they devalue the needs of people of low income and people of color. The theory of racial capitalism can be used to analyze how the racialized valuation process shapes residents’ understanding of green infrastructure.
However, as Anguelovski argues, existing research mainly focuses on identifying the questions, instead of following up with activists, municipal decision-makers, and agencies to examine gentrification stemming from greening projects and their response (Anguelovski et al., 2019; Blok, 2020). What’s more, while gentrification and green gentrification remain descriptive terms, less effort has been made to connect the micro-scale theories, such as “greenlining”, “green rent” and “green gap” (Anguelovski, 2015; Anguelovski et al., 2018, 2019), to meso- and macro-level sociological theories. Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan theory and risk-centric analytics may be a good alternative to the capital-centric approaches to analyze the cost of urban greening (Blok, 2020). Through a comparative analysis between two cities, Nordhavn in India and Copenhagen in Danmark, Blok (2020) indicates that local green gentrification, where urban socio-material inequalities are exacerbated through urban greening, contributes to the global effort, albeit insufficiently, to mitigate the widening disparities caused by climate change. However, during this process, the local marginalized groups still endure the entire cost of the sustainability-oriented urban development that aims to address the global climate risk (Beck, 1999; Blok, 2020, p.14). Thus, it is necessary to include environmental gentrification in the broad context of global inequalities and to give due attention to the risk from different levels, including local, national, regional, and global levels (Beck, 1999; Blok, 2020, p. 14).
As we confront the challenges posed by gentrification, it is imperative to consider its intersection with broader societal issues, such as climate change. Green gentrification, in particular, underscores the complexity of urban development. This phenomenon, driven by sustainability-oriented initiatives, can exacerbate inequalities and displace marginalized communities. To address these complexities, a comprehensive approach is needed, one that integrates theories like racial capitalism and environmental justice. By bridging micro-scale insights with broader sociological frameworks, we can strive for urban development that is both equitable and sustainable in the face of evolving challenges.
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