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Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ICTA, Department Member add
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Sociology, Urban Studies, Environmental Justice, Urban Planning, Urban Design, Environmental Criminology, and 17 moreComputer Aided Design, Spatial Analysis, Landscape Planning, Housing, Transportation, Political Ecology, Critical Development Studies, Critical Geopolitics, Global (North/South) Environmental Politics, Climate Politics, Postcolonial Theory, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Barcelona, Food Justice, Urban theory, Place Making, and Gentrification edit
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I am an urban environmental and social planner working at the intersection of green, just, and healthy cities.edit
Supplemental material, APPENDIX_Interview_Instrument for Urban green boosterism and city affordability: For whom is the 'branded' green city? by Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole, James JT Connolly, Lucía... more
Supplemental material, APPENDIX_Interview_Instrument for Urban green boosterism and city affordability: For whom is the 'branded' green city? by Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole, James JT Connolly, Lucía Argüelles, Francesc Baró, Stephanie Loveless, Carmen Pérez del Pulgar Frowein and Galia Shokry in Urban Studies
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess... more
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities across diverse developmental and environmental conditions. We argue that urban adaptation injustices fall into two categories: acts of commission when interventions negatively affect or displace poor communities and acts of omission when they protect and prioritize elite groups at the expense of the urban poor.
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The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban a...
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This article critically examines the mechanisms of inequality that perpetuate vulnerability to extreme natural phenomena. It demonstrates that the catastrophic consequences of a natural disaster result more from a social process than the... more
This article critically examines the mechanisms of inequality that perpetuate vulnerability to extreme natural phenomena. It demonstrates that the catastrophic consequences of a natural disaster result more from a social process than the event itself. The analysis, based on ethnographic research in a municipality of the Mam Guatemalan Altiplano, first considers the construction of social and cultural vulnerability to disasters. It then provides an analysis of the tensions between a traditional Mayan discourse and respect for nature and the unsustainable practices of land management as exhibited in this context. Finally, I reflect on the unjust historical distribution of land in Guatemala and the dominant ideology of the global market, both of which render impossible a sustainable relationship with the natural environment. These unsustainable environmental practices, caused by economical and social inequalities, produce an unjust distribution of vulnerabilities to disasters. 84 PROCT...
Theories of epidemiologic transition analyze the shift in causes of mortality due to changes in risk factors over time, and through processes of urbanization and development by comparing risk factors between countries or over time. These... more
Theories of epidemiologic transition analyze the shift in causes of mortality due to changes in risk factors over time, and through processes of urbanization and development by comparing risk factors between countries or over time. These theories do not account for health inequities such as those resulting from environmental injustice, in which minority and lower income residents are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards or have less access to environmental goods. Neighborhoods with histories of environmental injustice are also at risk for gentrification as they undergo environmental improvements and new greening projects. We aimed to understand how environmental injustice, urban renewal and green gentrification could inform the understanding of epidemiologic risk transitions. We examined 7 case neighborhoods in cities in the United States and Western Europe which were representative in terms of city region and type, which 1) had experienced a history of environmental injustice and 2) exhibited evidence of recent processes of urban renewal and/or gentrification. In each city, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 172) with city representatives, activists, non-profits, developers and residents. Respondents reported health implications of traditional (heavy pollutants, poor social conditions), transitional (decontamination, new amenities), new (gentrification, access to amenities), and emerging (displacement, climate-related risks, re-emergence of traditional exposures) exposures. Respondents reported renewed, complexified and overlapping exposures leading to poor mental and physical health and to new patterns of health inequity. Our findings point to the need for theories of environmental and epidemiologic risk transitions to incorporate analysis of trends 1) on a city-scale, acknowledging that segregation and patterns of environmental injustice have created unequal conditions within cities and 2) over a shorter and more recent time period, taking into account worsening patterns of social inequity in cities.
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As global cities grapple with the increasing challenge of gentrification and displacement, research in public health and urban geography has presented growing evidence about the negative impacts of those unequal urban changes on the... more
As global cities grapple with the increasing challenge of gentrification and displacement, research in public health and urban geography has presented growing evidence about the negative impacts of those unequal urban changes on the health of historically marginalized groups. Yet, to date comprehensive research about the variety of health impacts and their pathways beyond single case sites and through an international comparative approach of different gentrification drivers and manifestations remains scarce. In this paper, we analyze qualitative data on the pathways by which gentrification impacts the health of historically marginalized residents in 14 cities in Europe and North America. We build on 77 interviews with key neighborhood stakeholders. Data analysis indicates four main concurrent processes: Threats to housing and financial security; Socio-cultural displacement; Loss of services and amenities through institutional gentrification; and Increased risks of criminal behavior and compromised public safety. Gentrification is experienced as a chain of physical and emotional community and individual traumas - an overall shock for historically marginalized groups - because of permanent pressures of insecurity, loss, state of displaceability, and the associated exacerbation of socio-environmental disadvantages.
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Cities are projected to hold two-thirds of the world's population by 2050 under a period of intensifying climate change. Ensuring sustainable, climate-resilient, and equitable cities will require moving beyond incremental adaptation... more
Cities are projected to hold two-thirds of the world's population by 2050 under a period of intensifying climate change. Ensuring sustainable, climate-resilient, and equitable cities will require moving beyond incremental adaptation to transformative adaptation. What does transformative adaptation mean for cities, and how can it be achieved, particularly in cities with low adaptive capacity?
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BACKGROUND Cities are restoring existing natural outdoor environments (NOE) or creating new ones to address diverse socio-environmental and health challenges. The idea that NOE provide health benefits is supported by the therapeutic... more
BACKGROUND Cities are restoring existing natural outdoor environments (NOE) or creating new ones to address diverse socio-environmental and health challenges. The idea that NOE provide health benefits is supported by the therapeutic landscapes concept. However, several scholars suggest that NOE interventions may not equitably serve all urban residents and may be affected by processes such as gentrification. Applying the therapeutic landscapes concept, this study assesses the impacts of gentrification processes on the associations between NOE and the health of underprivileged, often long-term, neighborhood residents. METHODS We examined five neighborhoods in five cities in Canada, the United States and Western Europe. Our case studies were neighborhoods experiencing gentrification processes and NOE interventions. In each city, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews on NOE interventions, equity/justice, gentrification and health (n = 117) with case study neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, neighborhood resident leaders and other stakeholders such as public agencies staff. RESULTS Respondents highlighted a variety of interconnected and overlapping factors: the insufficient benefits of NOE to counterbalance other factors detrimental to health, the use of NOE for city branding and housing marketing despite pollution, unwelcomeness, increase of conflicts, threats to physical displacement for themselves and their social networks, unattractiveness, deficient routes, inadequate NOE maintenance and lack of safety in NOE. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrated that underprivileged neighborhood residents were perceived to experience new or improved NOE as what we call "disruptive green landscapes" (i.e. non-therapeutic landscapes with which they were not physically or emotionally engaged) instead of as therapeutic landscapes.
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Increasingly, greening in cities across the Global North is enmeshed in strategies for attracting capital investment, raising the question: for whom is the future green city? Through exploring the relationship between cities’ green... more
Increasingly, greening in cities across the Global North is enmeshed in strategies for attracting capital investment, raising the question: for whom is the future green city? Through exploring the relationship between cities’ green boosterist rhetoric, affordability and social equity considerations within greening programmes, this paper examines the extent to which, and why, the degree of green branding – that is, urban green boosterism – predicts the variation in city affordability. We present the results of a mixed methods, macroscale analysis of the greening trajectories of 99 cities in Western Europe, the USA and Canada. Our regression analysis of green rhetoric shows a trend toward higher cost of living among cities with the longest duration and highest intensity green rhetoric. We then use qualitative findings from Nantes, France, and Austin, USA, as two cases to unpack why green boosterism correlates with lower affordability. Key factors determining the relation between urban...
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Scholars in urban political ecology, urban geography, and planning have suggested that urban greening interventions can create elite enclaves of environmental privilege and green gentrification, and exclude lower-income and minority... more
Scholars in urban political ecology, urban geography, and planning have suggested that urban greening interventions can create elite enclaves of environmental privilege and green gentrification, and exclude lower-income and minority residents from their benefits. Yet, much remains to be understood in regard to the magnitude, scope, and manifestations of green gentrification and the forms of contestation and resistance articulated against it. In this paper, we propose new questions, theoretical approaches, and research design approaches to examine the socio-spatial dynamics and ramifications of green gentrification and parse out why, how, where, and when green gentrification takes place.
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One of the unique and emerging responses to the current ecological, social, political and economic crises has been the emergence of community initiatives in a range of formulas and geographical contexts. We explore their emergence and... more
One of the unique and emerging responses to the current ecological, social, political and economic crises has been the emergence of community initiatives in a range of formulas and geographical contexts. We explore their emergence and evolution beyond the analysis of a single fixed set of factors that are expected to contribute to their initiation and growth. Upon reviewing the trajectories of various initiatives in the region of Barcelona (Spain), we argue that the metaphor of the fertile soil provides a useful framework to describe or explain the messy process of emergence and evolution of grassroots and community projects. Fertile soil is understood here as a particular quality of the social texture, characterized by richness, diversity, unknowns but also – by multiple tensions and contradictions. Yet it is not only the diversity of factors but the quality of their mutual relatedness that ‘makes’ the soil fertile for the emergence of new groups and the continuation of existing on...
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While access and exposure to green spaces has been shown to be beneficial for the health of urban residents, interventions focused on augmenting such access may also catalyse gentrification processes, also known as green gentrification.... more
While access and exposure to green spaces has been shown to be beneficial for the health of urban residents, interventions focused on augmenting such access may also catalyse gentrification processes, also known as green gentrification. Drawing from the fields of public health, urban planning and environmental justice, we argue that public health and epidemiology researchers should rely on a more dynamic model of community that accounts for the potential unintended social consequences of upstream health interventions. In our example of green gentrification, the health benefits of greening can only be fully understood relative to the social and political environments in which inequities persist. We point to two key questions regarding the health benefits of newly added green space: Who benefits in the short and long term from greening interventions in lower income or minority neighbourhoods undergoing processes of revitalisation? And, can green cities be both healthy and just? We pro...
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A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess... more
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities across diverse developmental and environmental conditions. We argue that urban adaptation injustices fall into two categories: acts of commission, when interventions negatively affect or displace poor communities, and acts of omission, when they protect and prioritize elite groups at the expense of the urban poor.
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Urban Agriculture (UA) is growing in popularity in the Global North and UA practices has also colonized buildings through Urban Rooftop Farming (URF), which aims to take advantage of unused spaces in current cities. Rooftop farms and... more
Urban Agriculture (UA) is growing in popularity in the Global North and UA practices has also colonized buildings through Urban Rooftop Farming (URF), which aims to take advantage of unused spaces in current cities. Rooftop farms and greenhouses are spreading as local community or private (i.e., companies) projects, particularly in North America. However, URF usually requires higher resources than soil-based UA and perceptions around these systems are divergent. In this context, the current paper explores how stakeholders perceived URF in Barcelona. Special attention is paid in the conceptualization of UA, the drivers for promoting both UA and URF, and their position in supporting URF. Results show that stakeholders conceptualize UA in three different ways and that the different conceptualizations determine the way URF is perceived and supported. First, periurban stakeholders identify UA as an " unreal " agriculture, since UA is not performed by professionals and does not ...
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The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to... more
The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to the persistence of racial inequality, we observe the urban greening orthodoxy in urban planning and development as evidencing a deeper strain of environmental injustice bound up in the legacy and continuance of White supremacy. In this article, following the prompts of the Black Lives Matter Movement to enact life-affirming Black geographies, we call for decolonizing the green city and for an emancipatory spatial imaginary to enact green justice. Reflecting on the development of the 11th Street Bridge Park in the predominantly Anacostia neighborhood in Southeast, Washington, DC, we ask how urban greening can enact a more emancipatory green justice. We use this case example to trace the contours and constraints of current greening and equity logics and practices and contend that decolonization and emancipation fundamentally require new spatial planning practices. While the green project is deployed as an ''intentional'' equity-centered infrastructure, it is limited in its ability to embrace multiple forms of land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and to develop green practices that engage with the history of a multilayered geography of dispossession and include cultural and symbolic recogni-tions of networks of resilience and care. We thus argue for a more emancipatory spatial imaginary in urban planning that more directly confronts White supremacist forms of dispossession, centers resistance to anti-Blackness, and articulates a geography of reparations through decolonizing settlement patterns at multiple geographical scales.
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The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to... more
The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban amenities. While many scholars point to the persistence of racial inequality, we observe the urban greening orthodoxy in urban planning and development as evidencing a deeper strain of environmental injustice bound up in the legacy and continuance of White supremacy. In this article, following the prompts of the Black Lives Matter Movement to enact life-affirming Black geographies, we call for decolonizing the green city and for an emancipatory spatial imaginary to enact green justice. Reflecting on the development of the 11th Street Bridge Park in the predominantly Black Anacostia neighborhood in Southeast, Washington, DC, we ask how urban greening can enact a more emancipatory green justice. We use this case example to trace the contours and constraints of current greening and equity logics and practices and contend that decolonization and emancipation fundamentally require new spatial planning practices. While the green project is deployed as an ''intentional'' equity-centered infrastructure, it is limited in its ability to embrace multiple forms of land recognition, redistribution, control, and reparations and to develop green practices that engage with the history of a multilayered geography of dispossession and include cultural and symbolic recogni-tions of networks of resilience and care. We thus argue for a more emancipatory spatial imaginary in urban planning that more directly confronts White supremacist forms of dispossession, centers resistance to anti-Blackness, and articulates a geography of reparations through decolonizing settlement patterns at multiple geographical scales.
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The extent to which new greening initiatives contribute to gentrification processes in urban areas is of rising interest to researchers and policymakers, but the precise (and often intangible) aspects of green spaces that embed them... more
The extent to which new greening initiatives contribute to gentrification processes in urban areas is of rising interest to researchers and policymakers, but the precise (and often intangible) aspects of green spaces that embed them within gentrification processes are not well understood. The Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) literature offers new ways of measuring these aspects. In this study, we use geo-located social media data to assess the value attributed to CES in 18 urban parks in Barcelona, of which 9 were shown to have experienced green gentrification in previous studies. We performed descriptive analysis and statistical independence tests on 703 photos downloaded from the social media platform Flickr. Of the 703 photos analyzed, 85% were taken in parks associated with green gentrification; nevertheless, around 80% of all photos depicted built infrastructures rather than ecological features-indicating that green gentrification is not strictly about greenness and how visitors value it. Statistical results show that parks that experienced green gentrification were significantly associated with "aesthetics" and "recreational activities", whilst parks that did not experience green gentrification were significantly associated with "cultural identity" and "social activities". These results suggest that justice outcomes following from the relationship between urban greening and gentrification are dependent on the social-cultural associations with green spaces that the ecosystem services framework formulates, making it a potentially powerful tool for understanding how to generate more just greening policies in cities.
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This paper analyzes environmental gentrification (EG), or the exclusion, marginalization, and displacement of long-term residents associated with sustainability planning or green developments and amenities, such as smart growth, public... more
This paper analyzes environmental gentrification (EG), or the exclusion, marginalization, and displacement of long-term residents associated with sustainability planning or green developments and amenities, such as smart growth, public park renovations, and healthy food stores. We consider how activists, communities, and urban planners address these unjust processes and outcomes associated with EG and how these strategies compare to those used by environmental justice (EJ) activists. Our evaluation of relevant literature indicates several similarities with EJ resistance tactics, including collective neighborhood action, community organizing, and direct tactics. We also identify several different strategies enabled by certain urban environmental conditions, such as leveraging environmental policies and taking an active role in neighborhood redevelopment planning processes, collaborating with 'gentrifiers,' and creating complementary policies to manage displacement and exclusion. Our analysis indicates a need for more research on how activists can better assert the social and political dimensions of sustainability and their right to the city, and how green and sustainable cities can achieve justice and equity.
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess... more
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities across diverse developmental and environmental conditions. We argue that urban adaptation injustices fall into two categories: acts of commission, when interventions negatively affect or displace poor communities, and acts of omission, when they protect and prioritize elite groups at the expense of the urban poor.
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Environmental justice as studied in a variety of disciplines is most often associated with redressing disproportionate exposure to pollution, contamination, and toxic sites. In Neighborhood as Refuge, Isabelle Anguelovski takes a broader... more
Environmental justice as studied in a variety of disciplines is most often associated with redressing disproportionate exposure to pollution, contamination, and toxic sites. In Neighborhood as Refuge, Isabelle Anguelovski takes a broader view of environmental justice, examining wide-ranging comprehensive efforts at neighborhood environmental revitalization that include parks, urban agriculture, fresh food markets, playgrounds, housing, and waste management.