Introduction to Green Gentrification and Our Approach

With segregation in housing markets a recurring problem in the US, communities populated predominantly by racial and ethnic minorities have tended to be locations for disproportionately more disamenities and disproportionately fewer amenities than other communities; this is the classic Environmental Justice, or EJ, problem. There is considerable evidence on disproportional exposure to environmental disamenities in these communities, with more recent evidence developing with regards to lesser access to environmental amenities such as green spaces. Environmental amenities are not provided in isolation, but are often part of cities’ and communities’ efforts to renovate and revitalize polluted, segregated, and low-income neighborhoods. Yet the addition of amenities can cause changes to the neighborhood. Without understanding how neighborhoods change in the process of cleaning and greenspace development, it is difficult to tackle environmental injustice issues, for they may be aggravated by the distribution of amenities in urban areas. This book clarifies the separate concepts of gentrification and displacement, considers the city as a complex adaptive system, identifies crucial factors that are involved in neighborhood changes, provides research to gain insight onto the clusters of key factors that may lead to more desired or less desired neighborhood change, and makes policy recommendations.