| dc.description.abstract | Since the 1990s, cities have been perceived as key actors in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Indeed, urban landscapes are both major contributors to climate change and will likely experience most acutely the effects of climate change based on their location, density and infrastructure. As a result, local authorities are increasingly using a climate adaptation rhetoric that stresses the need to green the city, given the multiple socioenvironmental benefits of green spaces. These strategies have been promoted as “win-win” solutions, but recent research has already warned against several negative effects of greening interventions, namely green gentrification, which refers to the displacement and exclusion of the most vulnerable social groups resulting from an environmental planning agenda. This research seeks to better understand how greening interventions are perceived and experienced by residents through a comparative case study analysis of four neighborhoods in North America (East Boston and Hunting Park in Philadelphia) and Europe (Amsterdam Noord and Poblenou in Barcelona) to obtain a more international perspective on the phenomenon. The following research question guided the study: “to what extent do greening interventions for climate adaptation produce perceived and/or experienced negative social effects?” This research corroborated existing findings on green gentrification by means of document analyses, desk research and a qualitative analysis of nearly 100 interviews, partly carried out by the author and partly executed previously within the EU-funded GreenLULUs project. The chosen neighborhoods have been historically neglected, and the growing climate rhetoric at national or city-levels that is paving the way for more green interventions, is occurring in parallel to gentrification pressures such as rising rents and living costs. Although the findings show that residents highly value green spaces, if these are not implemented along with policies that guarantee equitable outcomes for the whole community, then negative effects prevail, and particularly so for vulnerable populations. This research concludes that a larger share of social and affordable housing is necessary to mitigate green gentrification effects, it encourages greater consideration of equity concerns in urban greening policies and plans, and it advocates for greater integration across institutional levels and disciplines. This study contributes to existing literature on (green) gentrification and reveals common patterns through the similarities in negative social effects across the four cities, namely physical displacement or the perceived threat thereof. It also contributes to the existing urban climate justice literature. Additionally, it fills research gaps by providing in-depth insights into how residents perceive and experience urban green spaces, also with the possibility to compare given the international scope of the study. Finally, it provides a new analytical research framework for future research in these contexts or in new urban landscapes. | |
