Metropolis Observatory Galia Shokry & Isabelle Anguelovski 12ISSUE PAPER Bringing nature back to the metropolis for all

metro polis world association of the major metropolises observatory page 03 Introduction

page 04 Environmental injustice in perspective: from brown to green inequalities

page 06 The promises of urban greening

page 08 Inequities and pitfalls

page 13 Advancing justice in urban greening Contents

page 16 Recommendations

page 18 Bibliography

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Introduction

As metropolitan spaces face increasing nature due to historically privileged positions challenges from sea level rise and growing and investments, others – often working-class health inequity to environmental conta- suburban communities – are dense, still host mination and food insecurity, greening is industrial land uses, and are deprived of much seen as a remedy and a path to achieving green space. Creating a more leveled green field UN Goals (SDG11 across cities while ensuring green connectivity in particular), while bringing nature across metropolitan spaces with differing back to urban areas. In this vein, socio-economic and environmental conditions greening has also become a tool for remains a formidable environmental justice metropolitan policymakers to increase challenge. the attractiveness of long disinvested neighborhoods and municipalities and The release of this issue paper coincides boost economic growth alongside eco- with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and system services. In peripheral metropolitan reinvigorated debates around green and cities, nature-centered interventions can also healthy cities. Around the world, urban areas serve to attract new residents in search of have become hotspots for the spread of more affordable living space, greater access to disease, but most of all, the pandemic has both existing and new green space, and new highlighted urban socio-spatial inequalities connectivity to urban centers thanks to green not only between metropolitan spaces, but corridors. Greening has joined new visions very much within them. to create a more sustainable urban fabric by integrating nature-based solutions (NBS) and How can a greener metropolis also be a more green (GI) with concepts such just one for all its residents? In the 12th edition as child-friendly and healthy cities, gender of our Metropolis Observatory issue papers, mainstreaming, green jobs and urban resilience. Galia Shokry and Isabelle Anguelovski, along with their colleagues from the Barcelona However, as local and regional governments Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and strive to renature metropolitan territories (BCNUEJ), address this question and improve access to green spaces, historic through an examination of the promises and and ongoing uneven development and social social pitfalls of various greening agendas, inequalities across neighborhoods, districts using empirical and scholarly research to show and municipalities remain a formidable barrier how collaboration between governments and to guaranteeing greening benefits for all. While metropolitan residents can lead to more just some are able to offer ample access to and greener outcomes for all.

Octavi de la Varga Metropolis Secretary General

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Environmental injustice in perspective: from brown to green inequalities

Environmental justice (EJ) activists airports, dams, and waste incineration) have struggled for decades to reduce represent significant environmental Environmental the disproportionate level of impacts justice challenges (Mitchell et al., 2015). justice fights of environmental contamination on Today’s sprawling hubs in against the the health of lower-income residents East and South Asia are where poorer and impacts of and communities of color. The earliest minority residents live near and directly on scholarship on EJ – much of it from North site with not only polluting industries but environmental America – examined distributional also transportation, waste exportation, contamination inequities in exposure to contamination and shipping zones, from airports and for and health risks, highlighting which and seaports to expansive highway groups lived closest to polluting facilities interchanges (Martinez-Alier et al., 2016). equitable (holifield et al., 2009). Statistical research Poor and ethnic minorities throughout access to on metropolitan regions (Schweitzer Sub-Saharan Africa are overwhelmingly environmental and Stephenson, 2007) revealed that resettling in informal neighborhoods goods for minorities and low-income residents whose disconnection from basic services, suffered from greater environmental proximity to pollutants, and lack of every person harm and less protection from waste quality open space exacerbates health regardless of sites, disposal facilities, incinerators, inequalities (Rigolon et al., 2018). In race, ethnicity, refineries, and other contaminating South America and around the world, industries – traditionally known as locally activists confront the deadly impacts income, age or unwanted land uses (LULUs) – than white of expanding mining, forestry and oil gender and wealthier communities. extractive industries often on indigenous people’s lands, while wealthier citizens Environmental injustices have existed and of metropolitan areas enjoy the benefits endure around the world. In Europe, the of these environmental harms done legacy of polluted land in many former elsewhere (Temper et al., 2018). industrial metropolises – where migrants and guest workers from southern and Over the past two decades, EJ studies and eastern Europe and former colonies were urban EJ activism have articulated a more brought to work and continue to live – and comprehensive agenda which combines recent attempts to site new socially and struggles against unequal environmental environmentally destructive facilities (e.g. contamination and denounces unequal

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access to environmental goods and In the Global North, green space amenities. This agenda builds on one of inequities have often been linked with the core visions of the EJ movement: that deindustrialization, suburbanization, and every person regardless of race, ethnicity, disinvestment (including environmental income, age, and gender has the right disinvestment) in metropolitan core areas. to a decent and safe quality of life In the Global South, planning for improved (Gauna, 2008). Environmental goods and access to green space is particularly amenities and urban important because informal settlements in particular play an important role in tend to have fewer quality green spaces, safeguarding those rights. and rapidly growing metropolitan areas may lack the time, budget and And yet, not surprisingly lower-income and capacity to coordinate greening between minority neighborhoods tend to be those metropolitan cities and towns. In return, less endowed (both in quality, quantity, green inequalities deprive immigrants, and maintenance) with green amenities minorities and working-class residents both in the Global North and South. In – and their neighborhoods – of the contrast, wealthier and white communities, numerous co-benefits of greening such as with higher rates of homeownership, improved health, reduced climate risks, have historically enjoyed environmental social cohesion, women’s empowerment, privileges ( and Pellow, 2011) through children’s cognitive development, leisure neighborhood access to nearby , and recreation, and even green jobs. waterfronts, and other open spaces. For example, studies in six Chinese cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Macau) showed that wealthier During 2020, metropolitan people tend to live closer to green spaces than low income residents, and studies in green inequalities have other Asian cities (Sheikhupura, , perhaps been experienced Hamadan) also found inequitable results even more sharply in for green space quantity, especially at the metropolitan scale for Tehran. confinement conditions than Three studies in Latin American cities ever before for those with (Santiago de Chile, Hermosillo, Bogotá) nowhere else to go, lacking and three studies in African cities (Cairo private green spaces or green and Cape Town) found that wealthier people live closer to parks than low-SES street views, and suffering people (Rigolon et al., 2018) and street from the closure of public greenness was positively correlated with green spaces income in Johannesburg (Venter et al., 2020). Results are similar in Europe: a recent study developed a Gini coefficient for green space inequality and found that the coefficient is highest (0.84) regarding the distribution of for immigrants (Kabisch and Haase, 2014). back to contents 06 metropolis observatory

The promises of urban greening

Numerous studies have shown that significant strides have already been made regarding the implementation of Greening has greening benefits residents’ health and wellbeing through improved GRI as part of climate adaptation and wide-spanning cardiovascular, respiratory and resilience planning (Shokry et al 2020). benefits for immunity-related health, birth These more flexible and cost-efficient people’s health, outcomes, self-perceived general means of addressing health – especially of women – and impacts are also hailed for improving the mitigation mental health (Markevych et al., access to waterfronts, reducing crime of climate 2017). Contact with natural outdoor through a more cleaned up environment, change impacts, environments has also been linked with and stimulating environmental lower odds of prostate or breast cancer, stewardship and education. As greening the calming of and mortality. The quality of life of people is increasingly discussed and in some traffic and the with intellectual disabilities or mental cases already integrated into planning enhancement of health disorders has been reported practices at the metropolitan scale, it gender equality, to benefit from contact with green is crucial to ensure that the expansion spaces (Triguero-Mas, 2020). Historically of green infrastructure across linked to name a few. marginalized communities may especially municipalities accounts for the diversity It is crucial to benefit from living near such amenities and vulnerabilities of different territories ensure that and residents’ shorter life expectancy (Shi, 2020). in the Global South could be partially the expansion remediated by improved contact with From a social perspective, for children of green nature (and the removal of toxic sites). living in urban centers, school and other infrastructure neighborhood play spaces may provide across linked With urban areas increasingly at risk from first introductions to nature, socialization, more frequent and intensifying climate physical activity and play. Green play municipalities impacts, green resilient infrastructure spaces contribute positively to early accounts for (GRI), such as climate-proofed parks, childhood development and reduced the diversity and green roofs, rain gardens, street mortality, thereby supporting Sustainable , wetlands and bioswales, reduce Development Goals 3 (good health and vulnerabilities trees stormwater runoff through greater well-being) and 4 (quality education). of different permeability, help mitigate flooding In the Barcelona neighborhood of territories and lessen effect. For Poblenou, new green play spaces are instance, in the greater metropolitan heavily used by families with children, areas of Manchester, Barcelona, Lyon, playing an important role in building Medellín/Valle de Aburrá and Durban, social cohesion (Oscilowicz et al., 2020). In

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many cases, greening is associated with but also providing a space of solace and The Metropolitan Area traffic pacification initiatives, which often empowerment from which they are able of Barcelona (AMB) precede it. In Bogotá, pedestrianization of to develop social networks and find has a comparably long areas surrounding school zones through stability (Slater, 2001). In Quito, 86% of the tradition in the planning the Crezco con mi Barrio project (‘Growing 140 community gardens and 800 family of metropolitan green spaces across different with my Neighborhood’) aims to reduce gardens are headed by women, all of municipalities, such the incidence of injury and air them integrated in the urban as the River Llobregat to improve children’s wellbeing (Bernard program of the Quito Metropolitan District Park (photo), which van Leer Foundation, 2020). which aims to decrease social vulnerability has a length of 30 km and crosses 16 and increase their quality of life while municipalities. Currently Greening interventions planned with a addressing climate adaptation risks the AMB is developing gender and feminist perspective can also (Faraday, 2019). Green spaces can also a new Metropolitan enhance gender equality, by centering support caring for others, by offering safe Master Plan (PDU) that is putting even stronger everyday life experiences and the often and healthy environments for recreation emphasis on the social- feminized and undervalued activities and play closer to home. Barcelona is ecological connectivity related to care and reproductive labor emblematic for its stated commitments of metropolitan green in the city. Studies in Botswana, South to create a more feminist and caring city infrastructure across Africa, and Zimbabwe have shown as well as inclusive greening initiatives municipalities, primarily through the creation of urban farming as not only a means of such as climate shelters in schools and green corridors. improving the economic status of women superblocks. Photo: AMB

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Inequities and pitfalls

While bringing nature back to the city orthodoxy (Connolly, 2019), new city seems more critical than ever, the task branding and transformation around When once of guaranteeing benefits for all is often the win-win benefits of greening disinvested easier said than done. Both struggles (Garcia-Lamarca et al., 2019) results neighborhoods and hope for greater environmental in a green space paradox: those who are redeveloped equity and justice in metropolitan spaces could most benefit from environmental have increasingly met with a wicked amenities become those most excluded into new green dilemma: as neighborhoods cleanup, from their long-term enjoyment, with neighborhoods environmental goods come in and cities deep health inequity considerations catering to envision greening as part of a new urban (Cole et al., 2019). What we and others brand associated with new economic often call green or environmental wealthier development. Private investors find – social exclusion that residents, financial value in this revitalization and occurs through increases in land values long-term spark redevelopment and displacement and new demographic trends linked low-income processes that potentially place vulnerable with environmental improvements residents at even greater risk. (Gould and Lewis, 2017) – can also and minority occur through the absence of land residents may Exclusion and green reparations or spatial arrangements for be physically a more emancipatory greening practice. gentrification in GI planning This is illustrated by the Cape Town and culturally As greening is increasingly pursued at Environmental Education Trust Fund displaced the metropolitan scale, we also observe and absence of post-apartheid land a steady “back to the city” movement security for racialized residents (Tozer of people and capital. In this process, et al., 2020). planners sometimes incentivize the redevelopment of urban land in once Green gentrification trends are found in disinvested neighborhoods into new many globalizing metropolitan spaces green neighborhoods for largely in the North and South. In , the wealthier (and whiter) residents. As restoration of the Cheonggyecheon this occurs, long-term low-income and Stream and the creation of new green minority residents may be physically areas and walking paths did enhance and culturally displaced due to livability and environmental quality increasing unaffordability, political for local neighborhoods, but also marginalization, and the erasure of significantly raised values, local commerce, gathering places and displaced traditional retail stores, and services. This growing green planning engendered gentrification (Lim et al.,

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Shiraz’s Green City project aims to reforest the city’s periphery. One of its financing mechanisms is to give tax exemptions to private sector investors who intend to build tourist attractions that fit into the general plan of the project and are in accordance with the development plan of the city. Although there is a premise that greening leads to social inclusion, it would be key to integrate one of the already identified barriers of the project, which are peripheral settlements, in the design of the development plan itself (and thus in the conditions imposed on private investors), in order to guarantee the right to housing of the most marginalized residents.

2013). In Rio de Janeiro, the green driven inequalities and structural upgrading of favelas such as Babylonia violence may therefore be reproduced is perceived by residents as processes in the process of bringing nature back of and restriction, to the city and aggravated by racial, combining environmental cleanup, class and gender-blind spots, biases, public and green space redevelopment, and discrimination in green planning. enclosure, and police violence Such risks seem to be particularly high that eventually control, drive out, and when interventions do not make social erase Afro-Brazilian residents and justice, affordability, and the inclusion their identities (Comelli et al., 2018). In of current residents an explicit goal. Medellín (as in Rio de Janeiro as well) Displacement for socially vulnerable the concept of “public good” sidelines groups often means a banishment to the traditional knowledges and desires areas with those same conditions of of longtime residents, causing their health and social injustice that greening displacement (Anguelovski et al., 2019; had intended to resolve (Shokry et al., Comelli et al., 2018). Social or race- 2020).

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Figure 1. The relationship between green gentrification and health equity Source: adapted from “Are green cities healthy and equitable? Unpacking the Relationship between health, green space and gentrification” (Cole et al. 2017).

Change in neighborhood residential characteristics • Socioeconomic status (education, income, employment) • Gender • Age • Race/ethnicity/place of origin/nativity • Language • Time living in neighborhood

Stakeholders Gentrification and context • Affordability • Public policy • Change in amenities Who benefits • Community groups • Residential/ from new green and organizations cultural displacement neighborhood • Private investment • Disruption of amenities? • Public/private community ties (Green) gentrification intervention changes the implications of neighborhood GREEN GENTRIFICATION environmental improvements for health equity through New greening processes of social Health equity initiatives and physical exclusion of lower income and Parks, gardens, minority residents pedestrian infrastructure Environmental remediation

Stress

Mental Environmental Contact with Social support/ and exposures green space social interactions physical health

Healthier behaviors/lifestyle

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The political and social limits Gothenburg, city bond issuers found of urban green financing social justice or equity considerations to be too political, too complex, not a As greening becomes increasingly priority, or a de facto part of existing important for a rising number of city projects (García-Lamarca and Ullström, and metropolitan governments, the 2020). Research in New York and Cape question of how to finance new green Town has found green bonds ultimately interventions looms large. Several reinscribe existing inequality, proving green finance tools have emerged in that sidelining justice and equity the past decade to raise external capital can be detrimental in the long term and thus enable action, with one of the (Bigger and Millington, 2019). In other most popular instruments being green words, rather than making cities more bonds. For centuries, governments have resilient, green bonds can deepen financed infrastructure development racialized geographies of financial through bonds, which act as low-risk and environmental risk when only debt investments to raise capital. Green focusing on the "green" dimension of bonds operate in the same fashion as investments. traditional bonds, but the money is invested in environmental projects. Inequalities in recent urban Despite increased resources needed for reporting and portfolio management, greening interventions the use of green bonds has risen from Health and well-being for all through less than 11 billion USD in 2013 to 257 natural outdoor environments? billion USD in 2019 (“Climate Bonds The accessibility, quality and perception Initiative,” 2020). Gothenburg was the of safety of green spaces tends to follow first to issue green bonds in 2013 and patterns of residential segregation by dozens have since followed, including class or race/ethnicity, where residents Cape Town and Mexico City. of neighborhoods with concentrated poverty and those with high percentages Yet, green bond instruments and of ethnic or racial minority , investment processes are increasingly have both worse access to green confronted with political feasibility and space and worse health outcomes. social equity challenges. In Mexico Complicating these patterns, greening City, the long-term stabilization of may result in gentrification and in the green bond and the physical displacement of marginalized maintenance of political support residents, or in their social or cultural beyond electoral cycles have proven exclusion from neighborhood green difficult (Hilbrandt and Grubbauer, spaces, preventing those residents 2020). Bonds can also be more difficult from enjoying health benefits (see to operate at the metropolitan scale figure 1). (Cole et al., 2017). since they tend to be issued for a central municipality. Furthermore, most Just climate adaptation through green green bonds do not consider questions resilient infrastructure? of social justice or equity in their issuing Despite growing consensus on the or reporting frameworks. In the case of need to protect urban areas from back to contents 12 metropolis observatory

climate impacts, there has been much Gender equality and greening? less attention to the undesirable Green inequalities serve as a reminder Urban impacts of climate adaptation planning that the “making” of cities has been planning and for socially vulnerable groups. In the a historical process imbued with development context of Medellín’s Metropolitan unequal power relations, in great part have Green Belt, for instance, the risk of manifesting as gender imbalances. landslides or flooding is believed to and development traditionally have been overinflated to justify the have traditionally prioritized activities prioritized relocation and housing clearance of perceived as masculine (productive activities thousands of low-income residents in labor), giving less attention to uses order to attract outside visitors and of space and infrastructure for the perceived as more privileged groups (Anguelovski care of children, sick people, and the masculine et al., 2018). In Philadelphia, green elderly (reproductive labor) which are (productive resilient infrastructure (GRI) has been typecast as feminine. Gentrification linked with gentrification of the city itself often reinforces traditional labor), giving center and the displacement of Black gender roles and spatial developments less attention and Latinx residents to peripheral (CURRAN, 2019). As a result, women to uses of areas with higher climate risk and little must often adapt their caring labor space and environmental protection (Shokry et al., to cities designed by and for (white, 2020). heterosexual, cis-) men, transforming infrastructure how they experience planning for the care of Greener play spaces for vulnerable interventions such as urban greening. children, sick children and families? Past experiences of violence might, Recent trends have shown that young, for example, make enclosed parks, or people, and highly-educated couples with higher other badly lit or unfrequented green/ the elderly incomes are especially attracted to blue infrastructure, unwelcoming, risky (reproductive neighborhoods with primary schools in spaces. For some female residents of labor) which proximity to quality green play spaces minority groups, such as Muslim women (Pérez del Pulgar et al., 2020). With an in European cities, green spaces might are typecast as influx of upwardly mobile families and be places of heightened insecurity, feminine increasing housing and other costs where they might need, for instance, of living, existing lower-income and more sheltered amenities in which to vulnerable families may be displaced to feel comfortable and protected from farther metropolitan towns (Oscilowicz Islamophobic and/or male aggression et al., 2020), leading to new financial (Kabisch and Haase, 2014; Wagner and and emotional stress due to longer Peters, 2014). While several cities are commutes, a loss of parenting support incorporating gender issues into green networks and children’s challenges in planning, questions of for which women adapting to a new community of peers. and where are rarely considered, falling Families in gentrifying neighborhoods shy of an intersectional approach may also experience conflicts with which considers true representation newcomer families and a loss of sense and participation across axes of social of place and belonging to newly greened differences, sectors and scales. child-friendly spaces.

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Advancing justice in urban greening

Much of the research outlined above 2013; Anguelovski, 2014; Anguelovski et Environmental illustrates that greening plays an al., 2020). Their work aims at improving ambiguous and ambivalent role for historically distressed neighborhoods justice activists historically marginalized groups. While and their long-term livability and and community lower-income and minority residents environmental quality through new leaders mobilize continue to be disproportionately green and recreational spaces, to build green exposed to environmental burdens community gardens, resilient housing, neighborhoods and underexposed to amenities, better waste management and an at the same time, they may have a overall improved wellbeing (Anguelovski, that can be conflicted relationship with urban 2016). Green organizing work around long-time nature because natural spaces have not new green spaces, playgrounds, safe havens always been integrating, welcoming, ecological corridors, or urban agriculture and refuges and safe amenities for them, especially often consists in creating welcoming, for socially due to racist, homophobic and sexist protective, reparative, and nurturing discourses and practices that define for environments and neighborhoods, vulnerable whom nature is – or is not (Finney, 2014; while rebuilding underinvested urban residents Kotsila et al., 2020; Park and Pellow, communities and fighting against 2011). In this way, green amenities community and individual grief and become GreenLULUs – Green Locally loss. Their mobilization is rooted in Unwanted Land Uses – for socially memories, healing and resilience. vulnerable residents (Anguelovski et al., The environmental spaces they foster 2018). often have restorative healing features, what some have conceived as green As a result, EJ activists and community safe havens (Anguelovski, 2014), as leaders have mobilized to create pedagogical and social spaces to reclaim environmentally just places and build memories and strengthen residents’ green neighborhoods that can be attachment and engagement in their long-time safe havens and refuges for place. socially vulnerable residents (Agyeman,

back to contents 14 metropolis observatory Photo: Connect the Dots photo library/Prefeitura de São Paulo

In São Paulo, a circular economy project called Connect the Dots, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, uses fresh organic produce from family vegetable farms in the southern peri-urban water springs area of the metropolis to provide food for local restaurants (add period start new sentence). They adapt their menu based on available produce, to create Metropolitan stakeholders, particularly family food baskets, and to supply planners and policymakers, have fresh ingredients transformed by a variety of tools and regulations female entrepreneurs. The city also works with five composting centers they may implement toward an anti- that return the compost to the gentrification, anti-displacement, and farmers. In this process, the Instituto equitable greening agenda that can Feira Livre trains farmers in pesticide- also achieve place-making, reparation, free agriculture and establishes commercial relationships with the and emancipatory goals. Anti- farming families. displacement and just greening policies

back to contents 15 Photo: Primăria Municipiului Bucureşti

In Bucharest, the Ion Creangă park was designed to explicitly integrate the social needs of the community with environmental protection, as well as to increase accessibility and mobility and reduce neighborhood disparities in relation to more developed parts of the metropolitan territory. The aims of the project include creating new should always be implemented with jobs for current residents, promoting meaningful participation from the non-discrimination and social inclusion communities affected. These tools, as well as improving relations between the Roma community and which address , financial other residents. The park has helped schemes, and developer requirements, change public perceptions of the can be implemented at a variety of neighborhood but hopes of increasing regulatory scales and have been property values by up to 15% must be balanced by anti-displacement policies effective in diverse economic, social to ensure benefits endure for current and environmental contexts. residents.

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Recommendations

1. Recognize urban greening as a non- racialized minorities and women who isolated intervention from other urban move at length and frequency through planning interventions which may have metropolitan spaces for job and care negative long-term consequences – such responsibilities. as unaffordability and displacement – for 7. Expand inclusion and lower-income and minority residents. acknowledgement of LGTBIQ+ These other initiatives may affect communities in green space planning, housing, transport, commerce, historic who have faced historical forms of districts and waterfront redevelopment, oppression. Parks have historically schools, crime, and jobs, among others. served as meeting places for these 2. Direct funding to smaller marginalized groups. metropolitan towns so that more 8. Use innovative participatory

PRACTICES socially deprived areas where long-term methods that increase vulnerable working-class residents live also benefit residents’ participation in urban from greening. planning, such as community mapping, 3. Ensure metropolitan investment neighborhood photovoice and and coordination that strengthens exploratory walks. green connectivity between towns and 9. Provide green spaces that can be access to metropolitan greening by foot, both safe and secure from the points bike and public transit for all. of view of socially vulnerable residents, 4. Consider how greening interventions especially racialized minorities, women, under the auspices of improving health people with disabilities and LGTBQI+ equity may lead to unintended health communities without creating heavily consequences and burdens such as surveilled or coercive places where gentrification and displacement, not only these groups’ uses and identities are to nearby neighborhoods but further erased or criminalized to defend the metropolitan towns, creating new green privilege of a few. housing, transport and health services 10. Support grassroots and vulnerable challenges. community groups through funding 5. Integrate the uses, preferences, and place-making opportunities that knowledges and needs of vulnerable embrace community organization and groups for green spaces and be willing local leadership. to recognize and address historic 11. Recognize power asymmetries legacies of trauma, violence, erasure, and within communities and in relation displacement both at the community and to government and non-governmental individual level. agencies. Self-assess preconceived 6. Adopt intersectional feminist notions of place and way of life, planning approaches in urban greening especially when life experiences differ to help recognize diverse representations from one’s own. and uses of space, especially for

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1. Advocate for the preservation, as a means to support community-led improved maintenance and upgrading, development, social-ecological security and increased funding to public and truly and sustained livelihoods through food affordable housing currently threatened production and living wage jobs. by the increased commodification and 5. Center social justice and neoliberalization of the housing market equity concerns in municipal and missing period. metropolitan green bond issuing and 2. Encourage housing stability through reporting frameworks. Metropolitan density bonuses or inclusionary strategies should aim to reduce at the metropolitan level while coupling municipal dependence on growth-

POLICIES such developer-focused policies with based development frameworks metropolitan-wide regulations to prevent and obligations to maximize land tenant displacement and ensure quality development. social and affordable housing, such as rent 6. Improve by making control, subsidies and use of land banks. urban gardens and farms cornerstones 3. Ensure equal access to green of communities through policies and space first through mapping regulations that fund and provide urban and benchmarking, followed by green space and transform vacant lots implementation of policies that mandate for community-led and cooperative a minimum area of green space per urban agriculture projects. resident in order to achieve positive 7. Design and fund new spatial mental and physical health outcomes. arrangements at the metropolitan 4. Enhance equitable metropolitan- scale to ensure land reparations, scale climate change adaptation controls, and security for vulnerable policies while preventing unjust groups that can both integrate new outcomes for vulnerable groups by greening and anti-displacement. reframing green resilient infrastructure

Overall, these recommendations aim at supporting greener, more just metropolitan spaces while preventing displacement that results from the upgrading of environmental amenities in socially vulnerable and long disinvested neighborhoods and towns. It is important to note that the measures also present some limits, and that most of all, their successful application relies greatly on political will and leadership.

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Anguelovski, I., et al., 2020. Expanding Pérez del Pulgar, C., Anguelovski, I., the Boundaries of Justice in Urban Connolly, J., 2020. Toward a green Greening Scholarship: Toward an and playful city: Understanding the Emancipatory, Antisubordination, social and political production of Intersectional, and Relational children’s relational wellbeing in Approach. Annals of the American Barcelona. Cities. Association of Geographers. Rigolon, A., et al., 2018. Access to Urban Baró, F., et al., 2021. Editorial to Green Space in Cities of the Global the special issue: “Advancing South: A Systematic Literature urban Review. Urban Science. implementation and assessment considering different dimensions Shokry, G., Connolly, J.J., Anguelovski, of environmental justice”. I., 2020. Understanding climate

Bibliography Environmental Science and Policy. gentrification and shifting of protection and Cole, H.V.S., et al., 2019. Determining vulnerability in green resilient the health benefits of green space: Philadelphia. Urban Climate. Does gentrification matter? Health & Place. Temper, L., et al, 2018. The Global Environmental Justice Atlas García-Lamarca, M., Ullström, S., 2020. (EJAtlas): ecological distribution “Everyone wants this market to conflicts as forces for sustainability. grow”: The affective post-politics of Sustainability Science. municipal green bonds. Environment and Planning E. Triguero-Mas, M., et al., 2020. Quality of Life Benefits of Urban Rooftop Gould, K.A., Lewis, T.L., 2017. Green for People with gentrification: urban sustainability Intellectual Disabilities or Mental and the struggle for environmental Health Disorders. Prev. Chronic Dis. justice. Wagner, L., Peters, K., 2014. Feeling at Kotsila, P., et al., 2020. Nature-based home in public: diasporic Moroccan solutions as discursive tools and women negotiating leisure in contested practices in urban Morocco and the Netherlands. nature’s neoliberalisation processes. Gender, Place & Culture. Environment and Planning E. Click here for more resources Oscilowicz, E., et al., 2020. Young families and children in gentrifying neighborhoods: how gentrification reshapes use and perception of green play spaces. Local Environment.

back to contents About the authors*

Galia Shokry is a doctoral researcher at BCNUEJ and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her research examines intersections between climate adaptation planning and urban inequalities, green gentrification, and struggles for social and racial justice in the city.

Isabelle Anguelovski is ICREA research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Director of the BCNUEJ lab. Her research focuses on the politics and processes of building green and sustainable cities as well as on the broader justice and equity dimensions of urban development.

Other contributing authors from the BCNUEJ*

Lucía Argüelles is a postdoctoral researcher working on just food systems and the politics of sustainable food production. Francesc Baró is an assistant professor whose research explores the complexity of urban social-ecological systems to understand how cities can become inclusive, safe, healthy, resilient and sustainable. Amalia Calderón- Argelich is a doctoral researcher covering the environmental justice aspects of urban green infrastructure and ecosystem services with a gender and feminist perspective. Helen Cole is a postdoctoral researcher with a doctorate in public health, focusing on the intersection of urban planning, environmental justice and public health. James Connolly is in the School of Community and at the University of and Co-Director of the BCNUEJ lab. Austin Gage Matheney is a doctoral researcher focusing on the role of community-driven urban greening projects in mending social and ecological rifts in historically deprived neighborhoods in East and Southern Africa. Panagiota Kotsila is a postdoctoral researcher examining the politics of urban re-naturing, unequal distribution of health risks, and interrogating uneven, racialized, and intersectional vulnerabilities. Melissa García-Lamarca is a postdoctoral researcher and human geographer interested in political economic structures generating urban green and housing inequalities and how collective struggle can open up new alternatives. Johannes Langemeyer is a principal investigator and geographer engaged in transdisciplinary research on ecosystem services, resilience and justice in the context of planning and urban transitions. Emilia Lewartowska’s academic interests concern racial aspects of community organization around urban green equity. Emilia Oscilowicz’s research focuses on the intersection of green gentrification, healthy public spaces, and just cities for children and families. Carmen Pérez del Pulgar is a doctoral researcher focusing on the political and social production of green-playful cities by race, gender and class in everyday urban spaces. Filka Sekulova is a postdoctoral researcher working on the governance or politics of nature-based solutions in Europe. Ana T. Amorim-Maia is a doctoral researcher interested in feminist intersectional approaches to inclusive and equitable adaptation that centers the knowledge, priorities and needs of minority residents. Margarita Triguero-Mas is a postdoctoral researcher and environmental and public health scientist focusing on the intersection of urban planning, environmental justice and public health.

(*) Most authors are also affiliated with the Institute for The information and views set out in this Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the institutional Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Their research is supported opinion of the World Association of the by the GREENLULUS and Naturvation projects, which have Major Metropolises (Metropolis). Neither the Metropolis Secretariat General nor any received funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 person acting on behalf of the association research and innovation program (grant agreements 678034 may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the contents of this work. and 730243), and contribute to the Maria de Maetzu Unit of This work is licensed under the Creative Excellence grant (CEX2019-000940-M). Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sha- reAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license,visit: https://creative- commons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Supported by: Edition: December 2020 Edited by: Lia Brum Graphic design: Gloria Escoruela

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metropolis world association of the major metropolises

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