Green Gentrification
Image Credit: JoeVare on Flikr, “High Line Park, Phase One from Gansevoort to West 20th Street by Field Operations and Diller, Scofidio + Renfro.”
By Casey Morris
Green spaces and green infrastructure such as parks, bike trails, and greenways are vital for livable cities. Access to high-quality outdoor green spaces has significant impacts on the health of individuals and communities alike. These areas also increase biodiversity, manage stormwater, prevent heat islands, regulate emissions, foster social connections, and encourage healthy lifestyles. Some green spaces filter air, reduce noise, replenish groundwater, and even provide food. Urban trees absorb airborne pollutants from the atmosphere and provide shaded, cooler areas that reduce heat-related risks for city residents. These benefits have led to an explosion in investments in green projects in urban spaces.
Yet, green spaces are not evenly distributed. Green space disproportionately benefits white and more affluent communities. The distribution of these spaces is largely the result of long-term systems of racialized disinvestment in low-income communities and communities of color in the United States. Recently, the uneven accessibility of urban green spaces has been recognized as an environmental justice issue. The combination of this recognition of historic harms along with rising awareness of the benefits of green infrastructure has led to a push for investment in green projects in areas with environmental justice concerns.
The result has been a paradox. The creation of green spaces with the aim of addressing environmental justice problems can increase housing costs and property values which leads to displacement of existing communities and the perpetuation of the same historic inequities cities seek to remedy. As these areas become more green, they also become more white. This process is known as “green gentrification.”
One example of this comes from the High Line in New York City. The High Line is a 1.5 mile elevated park constructed on an abandoned railway. On one hand, the park project has been immensely successful since it opened in 2009. The park draws millions of visitors and has won accolades for its architecture. Its dark side, however, is the green gentrification it has prompted in the surrounding neighborhoods. The impact has been dramatic enough to be coined the “High Line Effect.” One building flanking the park has an 11-room penthouse that listed for $58.5 million in 2019; the land underneath it was formerly a scrapyard.
Another similar process has unfolded in Atlanta. There, the city initiated its ambitious ATL BeltLine project in 2005, a multidecade plan to transform 22 miles of underutilized rail corridor into a new public transit system along with ten parks, a network of trails, and an urban farm. The project initially considered housing needs and the city required the organization managing the project to fund a minimum of 5600 affordable homes by its completion in 2030. The Atlanta City Council created the Belt Line Affordable Housing Trust Fund in order to create and preserve affordable housing in the Beltline neighborhoods. The fund comes from the Beltline Tax Allocation District (15 percent of the revenue over 25 years). Yet, by the project’s midway point of 2015 there were only 785 affordable units. From 2011 to 2015, housing prices in some areas neighboring the ATL BeltLine increased 68 percent, outpacing other parts of the city.
These trends are concerning but should not be taken to discourage investment in green infrastructure in our cities. Those spaces are all the more important in the zones of cities that have been historically least invested in and most harmed by pollution, heat, and other environmental harms. Green development can be equitable, and projects must invest in and engage with communities of color and low-income communities as these projects are designed and developed.
Strategies to ensure green development benefits historically disadvantaged communities include job training, cultural corridors, land banks, community land trusts, and inclusionary zoning. Additionally, affordable housing financing sources such as direct funding, indirect funding, tax credits and incentives, land value capture programs, and tax increment financing can help ensure that the communities can remain in place as their surroundings become greener and more livable.
An example of such efforts can be found in Atlanta. In response to the concerns regarding affordable housing access near the Beltline green development, the city adopted its first inclusionary zoning ordinance in 2018. The program aims to keep rent affordable for residents “within the income range of police, firefighters, teachers, government employees, and young professionals.” The overlay district lies approximately one half mile on either side of the Beltline corridor and is officially defined in Sections 16-36A-0001 and 16-37-001 of the City of Atlanta’s municipal code. Following the passage of an additional ordinance in March 2021, the ordinance now includes the Westside Park Affordable Housing Overlay District. Developers in the area will be required to create dedicated affordable housing units or pau a fee-in-lieu. The standards apply to both for-rent and for-sale developments.
Preservation of community is all the more important as we face a future of climate change hazards. In Chicago’s 1995 heatwave that killed 739 people, heatwave mortality largely followed the same geographical distributions of the city’s historical segregation and inequity. Eight of the ten communities with the highest death rates had predominantly Black populations. Yet, three of the ten neighborhoods with the lowest heatwave death rates were also predominantly Black. Studies found that the key difference that lead to such dissimilar outcomes between these communities was that the areas with low death rates had strong community bonds. Those successful communities had organizations and physical spaces that brought them into contact with neighbors and friends, preventing isolation which can turn deadly in severe heat.
As we look to the future of cities facing climate effects, we must ensure that our efforts to create more green and livable spaces foster and enhance community bonds rather than destroying them. Green development must be equitable development to allow communities to both thrive and survive in the future.