Prioritizing equity is needed to combat green-city gentrification and 'irresponsible environmental policies,' urban geographer says

• The green-city model doesn't always come with environmental benefits.
• Green gentrification is increasing nearby property values and displacing long-term residents.
• Winifred Curran, a geography professor, spoke with Insider about solutions to green gentrification.

In Pilsen, a historically Latino neighborhood in Chicago, the city plans to construct a multipurpose 4.2-mile-long path, dubbed El Paseo Trail, along the abandoned rail line.

The proposed project would create more green space and access to environmental amenities. But after the 2015 completion of the nearby 606 trail dramatically increased property prices, the Pilsen community worries about the displacement of long-term residents.

This is known as green gentrification. Public investment in green spaces - or the rehabilitation of environmental disamenities - in a neighborhood increases property values, which prices out low- and middle-income residents.

In 2019, Bloomberg reported that "being located within a half-mile of a new greenway park increases the odds that a neighborhood will gentrify by more than 200%."

Green-city models and the perpetuation of inequity

Green gentrification includes the injection of green spaces for property gains, as well as park cleanups, riverbank restorations, and bioremediation - often as a result of community activism from local groups. But once these neighborhoods receive large investments, the longtime advocates of them are unable to stay and experience the benefits they once fought for.

"What we're seeing is that attempting to be green often ends up building on the same inequalities that got us here in the first place," Winifred Curran, an urban geographer and professor of geography at Chicago's DePaul University, told Insider.

According to UN-Habitat, cities are responsible for roughly 75% of the world's CO2 emissions but occupy only 3% of Earth's total land. As rapid urbanization puts pressure on the environment and cities' public-health systems, even green safety adaptations - water-absorbing green space, storm-surge-proof seawalls, elevated buildings, and more - can become a financial amenity that affects lower-income residents the most.

There's a disconnect between types of projects sold as "green" and the environmental benefit they bring to city neighborhoods, Curran noted.

For example, while New York's High Line rail-to-trail park preaches sustainable practices, it's one of the most expensive parks to maintain: The first two sections, which opened in 2009 and 2011, respectively, have an estimated maintenance cost between $3.5 million and $4.5 million a year. On top of that, the High Line's surrounding neighborhood experienced a 35.3% increase in housing values, which spurred the development of boutique hotels and million-dollar condos.

The solution to green gentrification

The case for green developments often highlights sustainability but leaves out equity in the process.

"A lot of greening efforts have been very superficial. It's to get credit for doing the work without accomplishing a whole lot of change," Curran said. "We need to foreground equity so that it is both inclusive of everyone who's affected but also recognizes that some people have borne the negative effects of our irresponsible environmental policies and that those same people are now bearing the ill effects of our environmental gentrification policies."

The solution to green gentrification often lies in the community and rethinking the broader concept of sustainability.

Groups such as Chicago's LVEJO, New York's Newtown Creek Alliance and UpRose, Michigan's Black Millennials for Flint, and the Boston Climate Action Network are just a few of the climate-justice organizations hoping to advance environmental change through an equity lens, which includes pushing for affordable-housing agreements in neighborhoods with new investments.

The concept of a green city must encompass more than flashy, expensive initiatives. Landscape improvements such as setting up oyster colonies in polluted waterways are one example of the ways in which cities can support neighborhoods without increasing the cost of new developments.

The model, coined by Curran as "just green enough," seeks to improve areas without displacing the livelihood of its residents in the process.