From Jacobs to the Just City: A foundation for challenging the green planning orthodoxy

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Now that Jane Jacobs' ideas are seen as urban planning orthodoxy, it is unclear how her institutional goal of progressive change for the field will carry forward. In the 1960s, Jacobs created the conditions for institutional change by offering a thorough critique of the "Radiant Garden City Beautiful" orthodoxy of urban planning and presenting a solution for the problems that she saw with this approach. She argued that the top-down, design-oriented planning of her time hurt the lives of individual residents and diminished society as a whole. Her solution was a new way of seeing the city: as a functional and efficient social system. Since the 1990s, a global planning orthodoxy - of which Jacobs' ideas are part - developed around the "Smart Sustainable Resilient City." This orthodoxy has been subject to critique, but Susan Fainstein's Just City theory offers tools for comprehensively challenging the approach and a solution for addressing the problems. In order to demonstrate the need for institutional change within the Smart Sustainable Resilient City orthodoxy, I use the Just City theoretical perspective to interpret the results of an analysis of green gentrification in New York City between 1990 and 2014. I argue that the over-valuation of Jacobsian diversity within the current urban planning orthodoxy generates unjust outcomes. The just green city, then, requires de-emphasizing Jacobs' intellectual project in favor of her far more important institutional project

From Systems Thinking to Systemic Action : Social Vulnerability and the Institutional Challenge of Urban Resilience

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-055

Three Histories of Greening and Whiteness in American Cities

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MHow has urban greening related to the degree of whiteness in neighborhoods? The answer to this question provides an essential "historical diagnostic" that can be used to develop an approach to urban ecology which integrates racial and ethnic change into the planning for proposed interventions. In this paper we employ state sequence analysis to analyze the historical trend of greening (including the implementation of new parks, greenways, community gardens, green recreation areas, and nature preserves) between 1975 and 2014 in a sample of nine cities in the United States relative to concentrations of white and non-white residents. We divide the nine cities into three common growth trajectories and separately examine the trends for each growth trajectory. We further illustrate these trends by mobilizing qualitative data from field work in selected neighborhoods to help explain the processes that generate certain key findings in the quantitative data. We find that the relationship between greening and race/ethnicity differs according to city-level growth trajectory. Cities with continuous high and rapid levels of growth in the postwar period have the strongest link between increased greening and whiter populations. Meanwhile, in cities that contracted or had a punctuated growth pattern, non-white areas had a uniformly low level of greening that occurred mostly in recent years. In all, we show how urban growth, greening, and whiteness are inextricably associated qualities of American cities. We argue that understanding this association is essential for development of a race-conscious model for enhancing urban ecosystems

Plural relational green space values for whom, when, and where? - A social media approach

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MThe values people ascribe to their interactions with and within the environment are essential to inform justice and sustainability transformations. The development of many of these values unfolds through enjoying so-called cultural ecosystem services (CES) such as outdoor recreation, landscape aesthetics or environmental education. A growing body of literature is improving the assessment of the multiple ways that people value human and non-human relations arising when enjoying CES. Yet, the geo-temporal-demographic patterns of values distribution and the lessons that can be derived are to be consistently analysed within this relational framework. Building on a visual and textual content analysis of social media (SM) data geotagged in a peri-urban park of Barcelona, Spain, this research explores the potential of analysing the associated metadata (such as geotag, timestamp and social media users' demographics - i.e., performed gender and residency) in order to develop a better understanding of the linkages between people's values and the situated context of their construction. Our results show trends in relational CES values distribution along and between the analysed spatial, temporal, and demographic dimensions. In particular, despite there being a multiplicity of values revealed across the whole case-study area, to enjoy contemplative CES, such as spiritual or cognitive value, people need to move away from highly frequented areas and prefer specific times of the day, respectively evening or afternoon. Locals show a higher preference to visit the park on weekends compared to non-locals, while women-performing users show a significantly higher drop in their CES benefits uptake compared to men-performing users at night. In addition to providing novel and fine-grained information for transformative practices toward justice and sustainability, this study highlights the importance of complementing CES studies employing SM with metadata analysis to improve our understanding of the relationship between the real and the more-than-real

Three Histories of Greening and Whiteness in American Cities

How has urban greening related to the degree of whiteness in neighborhoods? The answer to this question provides an essential “historical diagnostic” that can be used to develop an approach to urban ecology which integrates racial and ethnic change into the planning for proposed interventions. In this paper we employ state sequence analysis to analyze the historical trend of greening (including the implementation of new parks, greenways, community gardens, green recreation areas, and nature preserves) between 1975 and 2014 in a sample of nine cities in the United States relative to concentrations of white and non-white residents. We divide the nine cities into three common growth trajectories and separately examine the trends for each growth trajectory. We further illustrate these trends by mobilizing qualitative data from field work in selected neighborhoods to help explain the processes that generate certain key findings in the quantitative data. We find that the relationship between greening and race/ethnicity differs according to city-level growth trajectory. Cities with continuous high and rapid levels of growth in the postwar period have the strongest link between increased greening and whiter populations. Meanwhile, in cities that contracted or had a punctuated growth pattern, non-white areas had a uniformly low level of greening that occurred mostly in recent years. In all, we show how urban growth, greening, and whiteness are inextricably associated qualities of American cities. We argue that understanding this association is essential for development of a race-conscious model for enhancing urban ecosystems

Institutional Change in Urban Environmentalism: A case study analysis of state-level land use legislation in California and New York

This study examines how community development and mainstream environmental groups form coalitions in state-level urban environmental legislation and the effect these coalitions have upon larger processes of institutional change. I argue that the alignment of community development and environmental interests is essential in the efforts to flatten the existing power hierarchy around land use decision-making and open up new possibilities for urban form. It helps to form a "counter-institutional" response which combines "pragmatic" and "purist" interests to resolve the social and environmental dilemmas of land use. This study begins by establishing the extent of the institutional divide between community development and environmentalism through an archival analysis of the 1970s debate over national land use legislation. It then presents two case studies of policies which seek to close this divide: (1) the New York Brownfield Opportunity Area Program of 2003 which was initiated by community groups and (2) the California Senate Bill 375 of 2008 which was initiated by environmental groups. The case studies employ interview data, surveys of organizations, observations of public meetings, and document review. The cases examined provide examples of attempts to expand potential governance outcomes by forming "heterarchic" alliances across policy silos in order to make land use regulation responsive to the wider concerns of urban environmentalists. I find that heterarchy is achieved in the California case, but not in the New York case. The varying degrees to which urban and environmental advocacy groups are able to bridge the institutional divide between them is determinant of these outcomes. The extent to which heterarchic governance is achieved, in turn, impacts the ability of each policy to change the institutional structure of land use regulation

Grabbed urban landscapes : socio-spatial tensions in green infrastructure planning in Medellín

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 - Digital object identifier for the 'European Research Council' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000781) Digital object identifier for 'Horizon 2020' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007601).Cities confronted with unsustainable development and climatic changes are increasingly turning to green infrastructure as an approach for growth and climate risk management. In this context, recent scholarly attention has been paid to gentrification, real-estate speculation and resident displacement in the context of sustainability and green planning in the global North. Yet we know little about the environmental-justice implications of green infrastructure planning in the context of self-built settlements of the global South. To what extent do green infrastructure interventions produce or exacerbate urban socio-spatial inequities in self-built settlements? Through the analysis of a greenbelt project, an emblematic case of green infrastructure planning in Medellín, we argue that, as the Municipality of Medellín is containing and beautifying low-income neighborhoods through grabbing part of their territories and turning them into green landscapes of privilege and pleasure, communities are becoming dispossessed of their greatest assets-location, land and social capital. In the process, community land is transformed into a new form of aesthetically controlled and ordered nature for the middle and upper classes and for tourists. By contrast, communities' planning alternatives reveal how green planning can better address growth and climate risks in tandem with equitable community development

Greening plans as (re)presentation of the city : toward an inclusive and gender-sensitive approach to urban greenspaces

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABUnidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MCities around the world are increasingly expanding their sustainability agendas and adopting urban green and blue infrastructure planning as a strategy to become more resilient, healthy and sustainable. However, the development of urban greening governance often lacks a holistic vision that considers social inequities within the planning, implementation and management of green and blue spaces. Further, gender inequities have been a specific dimension particularly overlooked in urban greening planning, despite gender concerns gaining increasing political relevance in recent years. In this research, we assessed the extento to which social and gender equity are being considered in urban greening plans and projects at the local level. We chose Barcelona (Spain) as main case study due to its pioneering role in implementing crosscutting equity and gender policies at the municipal level. Building on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, we examined how social justice and gender are understood and operationalized in practice, from the design phase to implementation and maintenance of greening projects. Our findings suggest a shift in the role of urban greening which evolved from an ornamental role to a multifunctional vision of greening and is recently incorporating equity and inclusivity concerns. We identified three action areas of inclusive, gender-sensitive urban green planning practices: first, the incorporation of inclusivity and care as guiding visible values to recognize multiple needs of city residents; second, urban design for different uses and perceptions of greenspaces, particularly in relation to accessibility and autonomy; and third, the awareness and expertise from municipal staff vis-à-vis the consideration of social and gender equity in green planning and participatory approaches. Finally, we provide practical examples of the strategies that the City of Barcelona is implementing in each area and discuss some challenges and limitations, including what we identify as ad hoc intersectional greening

Intersectional climate justice : A conceptual pathway for bridging adaptation planning, transformative action, and social equity

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICUnidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MLocal governments around the world are formulating different ways to address climate change. However, the compounding and overlapping vulnerabilities of historically marginalized residents are commonly tackled in a fragmented manner by conventional adaptation approaches, even when justice is presented as an overarching goal of these plans. In response, we propose an intersectional pivot in climate adaptation research and practice to analyze the interconnected forms of social-environmental injustices that drive vulnerabilities in cities, paving the way for more concrete and integrated strategies of just urban adaptation and transformation. This paper brings together narrative and analytical review methodologies to inform a new conceptual framework that highlights the need to (1) tackle underlying reinforcers of racial and gender inequalities; (2) redress drivers of differential vulnerabilities; (3) take politics and ethics of care seriously; (4) adopt place-based and place-making approaches; and (5) promote cross-identity forms of activism and community resilience building. We illustrate the framework with examples of ongoing projects in Barcelona, Spain, which is an early adopter of intersectional thinking and justice-driven principles in climate action. Although many initiatives are in a pilot phase and do not all exclusively focus on climate adaptation, experiences from Barcelona do provide illustrative directionality for innovative and integrated approaches that can address multiple and intersecting social-environmental inequities