BARCELONA (EFE).— According to a study by the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), the renaturalization of cities through the creation of parks and green areas promotes social inequality because it expels residents with fewer resources from the area. ), in Spain.
The study, published in the journal “Nature Communications”, analyzed the real estate market and the socio-demographic conditions of 28 cities in nine countries between Europe and North America, and reveals that the planning of green areas has favored gentrification processes in 17 of the cities analysed. .
The work was led by UAB urban planner and geographer Isabelle Anguelovski, who for six years analyzed the characteristics and consequences of renaturation processes in 28 cities located in Europe and North America.
green gentrification
Green gentrification takes place in those cities where municipal green strategies are implemented and is the process by which the original population of a lower-middle or lower-class neighborhood is replaced by new inhabitants with greater purchasing power who arrive in the area attracted by the proximity of new parks and green areas and by the offer of more attractive housing.
As a result, the rental price and the sale of houses undergo a considerable increase, so that the most vulnerable groups cannot afford the prices and have to end up moving to other less attractive areas and with a lower quality of life. .
Anguelovski and his team showed that despite the indisputable socioeconomic, climatic and health benefits of green spaces for the population, there are large inequalities in their distribution and access.
In North America
Another study conducted by researcher Margarita Triguero, who publishes the journal “Environmental Research Letters”, states that while in the United States, urban parks and orchards tend to have greater gentrification potential, in Europe, recreation areas and green corridors are the main factors that favor the escalation of prices and the exclusion of residents with fewer resources.
“In the United States or Canada, there’s an aestheticization of orchards, which are larger, have maintenance, are organized, and are used as a marketing pretense by real estate developers to raise the price of the environment,” Anguelovski said.
“We were able to corroborate our initial hypothesis that greener cities become more unequal and unequal,” added the researcher, who highlighted the strong relationship between the renaturation of municipalities in the decade from 1990 to 2000 and the gentrification that took place in the 2010s.
“Research also shows how green gentrification contributes to the sociocultural exclusion of vulnerable residents, especially immigrants and people of color,” Anguelovski noted.
According to the study, among the cities with the highest gentrification processes are Atlanta, Copenhagen, Montreal, Nantes and Vancouver, where greening has taken place on a large scale and with a marked green rhetoric from promoters and municipal regulations.
Atlanta is home to the iconic 33-mile Beltline that will eventually connect 45 neighborhoods and is accompanied by new and rejuvenated parks built since the early 2000s.
Nantes, with a series of green axes along its two rivers, bordering small and large parks, has been called “The city in the garden” since the early 2010s and has a strong national and international marketing policy on its green career , especially since it received the Green Capital Award in 2013.
The study cites as an example the most recent green gentrification of Barcelona, in the Sant Martí district (eastern part of the city), a partially converted post-industrial area in the 22@ district, oriented towards technology, innovation and resilience climate. .
This process also affected the regenerated historic center (Ciutat Vella) in the 2010s and intensified in the high-income neighborhood of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.
The third group of cities includes cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, where gentrification is present but greening perhaps plays a more minor role compared to other interventions, such as Detroit, residential development, or in Washington, commercial development, especially in areas historically black neighborhoods, according to Anguelovski.
Valencia is among the 11 cities in the study that do not show a direct relationship between greening and gentrification since, despite the development experienced during the economic boom from 1990 to 2000, gentrification is more linked to regeneration programs and the arrival of the high-speed train speed and because it has favored smaller green spaces, perhaps with a less gentrifying impact, such as the Parcs de Barris.
