Are green cities healthy and equitable? Unpacking the relationship between health, green space and gentrification
Open accessAbstract
While access and exposure to green spaces has been shown to be beneficial for the health of urban residents, interventions focused on augmenting such access may also catalyse gentrification processes, also known as green gentrification. Drawing from the fields of public health, urban planning and environmental justice, we argue that public health and epidemiology researchers should rely on a more dynamic model of community that accounts for the potential unintended social consequences of upstream health interventions. In our example of green gentrification, the health benefits of greening can only be fully understood relative to the social and political environments in which inequities persist. We point to two key questions regarding the health benefits of newly added green space: Who benefits in the short and long term from greening interventions in lower income or minority neighbourhoods undergoing processes of revitalisation? And, can green cities be both healthy and just? We propose the Green Gentrification and Health Equity model which provides a framework for understanding and testing whether gentrification associated with green space may modify the effect of exposure to green space on health.
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The booming of greening projects all across Europe and North America is only the latest of the gentrification strategies adopted by various municipal governments.
“The booming of greening projects all across Europe and North America is only the latest of the gentri fi cation strategies adopted by various municipal governments (Cole et al. 2017).”
From Bin ich ein Berliner? Graffiti as layered public archive and socio-ecological methodology (2019) · cites this paper as Cole et al. 2017
The paper’s ‘Green Space and Gentrification: Causality or Reciprocal Determinism?’ section says greening initiatives are sometimes associated with gentrification, but explicitly says the causal direction is uncertain. The Introduction describes green gentrification as a potential unintended consequence. The paper does not support the claim that municipal governments across Europe and North America have adopted greening projects as deliberate gentrification strategies, or that these projects are booming. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Cites
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“[6] Meanwhile, environmental justice studies demonstrate that the greatest burden of negative effects from the environment is concentrated among lower-income and racial or ethnic minorities.[7-12]”
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Research works printed but not linked: 22
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Hunter, R. F., Cleland, C., Cleary, A., Droomers, M., Wheeler, B. W., Sinnett, D., Nieuwenhuijsen, M. J., & Braubach, M. (2019) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2019.104923 · Cited by 544 · see citing works
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Self-citationAnguelovski, I., Brand, A. L., Connolly, J. J. T., Corbera, E., Kotsila, P., Steil, J., Garcia-Lamarca, M., Triguero-Mas, M., Cole, H., Baró, F., et al. (2020) · Annals of the American Association of Geographers · doi:10.1080/24694452.2020.1740579 · Cited by 309 · see citing works
Self-citationBin ich ein Berliner? Graffiti as layered public archive and socio-ecological methodology
Valisena, D., & Norum, R. (2019) · Green Letters · doi:10.1080/14688417.2019.1602069 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cole, H. V. S., Garcia Lamarca, M., Connolly, J. J. T., & Anguelovski, I.
- Affiliations
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
- Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability, Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques and Institut de Ciѐncia i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Cole, Helen V S
- Venue
- Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2017-08-19
- Volume
- 71
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1118-1121
- ISSN
- 0141-7681 (ISSN-L)
- 0143-005X
- 1470-2738
- OpenAlex
- W2750466881
- Cited by
- 238
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 9
- FWCI
- 7.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- ddd.uab.cat
- Licence
- public-domain
- Locations
- Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- RECERCAT (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Repositori digital de la UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- H2020 European Research Council
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Urban Green Space and Health
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Keywords
- green gentrification, green spaces, urban health, health equity, environmental justice, gentrification, neighborhood revitalization, low-income neighbourhoods
- MeSH terms
- Cities, City Planning, Environmental Health, Health Promotion, Humans, Public Health, Residence Characteristics, United States, Urban Health
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