Green gentrification in European and North American cities

Although urban greening is universally recognized as an essential part of sustainable and climate-responsive cities, a growing literature on green gentrification argues that new green infrastructure, and greenspace in particular, can contribute to gentrification, thus creating social and racial inequalities in access to the benefits of greenspace and further environmental and climate injustice. In response to limited quantitative evidence documenting the temporal relationship between new greenspaces and gentrification across entire cities, let alone across various international contexts, we employ a spatially weighted Bayesian model to test the green gentrification hypothesis across 28 cities in 9 countries in North America and Europe. Here we show a strong positive and relevant relationship for at least one decade between greening in the 1990s-2000s and gentrification that occurred between 2000-2016 in 17 of the 28 cities. Our results also determine whether greening plays a lead, integrated, or subsidiary role in explaining gentrification. The relationship between new greenspaces and gentrification is an important one for urbanization. Here the authors show a positive relationship for at least one decade between greening in the 1990s-2000s and gentrification that occurred between 2000-2016 in 17 of 28 studied cities in North America and Europe.

Automated summary

There is a positive relationship between new greenspaces and gentrification, which can lead to social and racial inequalities, as well as environmental and climate injustice. This relationship is important for urbanization.