The Green City and Social Injustice

21 Tales from North America and Europe

Isabelle Anguelovski, James J. T. Connolly, Isabelle Anguelovski, James J. T. Connolly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000471670
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architettura
• Subtopic: Sostenibilità in architettura

The Green City and Social Injustice examines the recent urban environmental trajectory of 21 cities in Europe and North America over a 20-year period. It analyses the circumstances under which greening interventions can create a new set of inequalities for socially vulnerable residents while also failing to eliminate other environmental risks and impacts.

Based on fieldwork in ten countries and on the analysis of core planning, policy and activist documents and data, the book offers a critical view of the growing green planning orthodoxy in the Global North. It highlights the entanglements of this tenet with neoliberal municipal policies including budget cuts for community initiatives, long-term green spaces and housing for the most fragile residents; and the focus on large-scale urban redevelopment and high-end real estate investment. It also discusses hopeful experiences from cities where urban greening has long been accompanied by social equity policies or managed by community groups organizing around environmental justice goals and strategies.

The book examines how displacement and gentrification in the context of greening are not only physical but also socio-cultural, creating new forms of social erasure and trauma for vulnerable residents. Its breadth and diversity allow students, scholars and researchers to debunk the often-depoliticized branding and selling of green cities and reinsert core equity and justice issues into green city planning—a much-needed perspective. Building from this critical view, the book also shows how cities that prioritize equity in green access, in secure housing and in bold social policies can achieve both environmental and social gains for all.

Part 1

The social costs of glitzy green urbanism

DOI: 10.4324/9781003183273-1

The chapters in the following part analyze what we call “The social costs of glitzy green urbanism,” that is, the social impacts—including green gentrification, real estate speculation and luxury developments and loss of connection with place or displacement—on vulnerable residents when their neighborhood becomes the host of greening projects underpinned by green design, smart growth or growth-oriented eco-urbanism logics. In Milan, Amsterdam, Bristol and Valencia, green urbanism embodies key socio-environmental contradictions that often remain obscured or overlooked.

Milan, the largest smart city in Europe, has embraced a glitzy form of eco-urbanism through the redevelopment project Porta Nuova and its vertical forest tower, Bosco Verticale. Activists from Milan’s centri sociali (the well-known social centers) have denounced how the overall project has privatized a historic public park and how the rental costs of the recent skyscrapers are prohibitively expensive for most Milan residents. However, this vertical greening is counterpoised by new horizontal green spaces, especially community gardens driven by neighborhood activists.

Bristol, despite being named the European Green Capital in 2015, has yet to be able to provide all its citizens with access to quality green space and affordable housing. With a 66% budget cut in funding for the maintenance and creation of new greenspace and the government’s inability to deliver on promises of new affordable housing, both the city and its South Side communities have been faced with finding alternatives to creating a just and green city for all, with much of the burden falling on resident groups to both maintain green space and oversee plans for housing developments.

Valencia on the southeastern coast of Spain is one of the many cities transforming rail infrastructure into parks, as the Valencia Parc Central project illustrates. Here, we see the impact of an announcement effect through which gentrification accelerates due to the construction of luxury skyscrapers built along with Parc Central. This facilitates the financial feasibility of the luxury projects and enacts a more complete realization of Valencia’s new “modernity” in a competitive race across Europe for the most attention-worthy new infrastructure projects.

The tale of Amsterdam Noord’s green redevelopment illustrates the growing extent to which what has been long portrayed as an ideal urban model of social justice in Northern Europe is being dismantled. Although Amsterdam preserves a relatively high level of social equality thanks to the residuals of a strong institutional social architecture, the perils of green design, neoliberal policies, hyper-segregation and gentrification in the redeveloped Amsterdam Noord’s waterfront seem to have come to stay.

1
MILAN’S PRIVATE VERTICAL FORESTS VS. HORIZONTAL URBAN GREENING

Lucia Di Paola

DOI: 10.4324/9781003183273-2

Milan brands itself as the largest smart city in Europe, openly embracing eco-urbanism as a development modus operandum. Between 2004 and 2015, Milan completed Porta Nuova, its largest re-urbanization project to date, prioritizing urban greening and sustainability as symbolized by the new Vertical Forest (Bosco Verticale in Italian) skyscrapers. But activists from Milan’s centri sociali (social centers) and resident groups have strongly opposed the self-branded green project, criticizing the privatization of a public park and denouncing prohibitively high rents. According to them, Porta Nuova and its Vertical Forests illustrate a top-down privatization project that leads to exclusion and gentrification. In response, residents and activist groups have developed a public community garden in the same neighborhood that serves as a new model for democratic horizontal urban greening.

From an isolated working-class neighborhood to a “Gate of Green”

As the sixth most polluted city in Italy (Legambiente, 2019), Milan has designated urban greening as one of the top priorities in its Government Plan for 2030 (P.G.T., 2018). The municipality’s endorsement of the re-urbanization project of Porta Nuova heeds its commitment to placing greening and environmental sustainability at the center of redevelopment (Anselmi, 2014; Porta Nuova, n.d.). Developed, financed and managed by the global real estate firm Hines and led by Hines’ C.E.O. Manfredi Catella, Porta Nuova was the largest redevelopment project in Europe at the time, covering an area of 290,000 m² which the municipality had vowed to redevelop for more than 60 years. The new infrastructures of Porta Nuova are partially built in the existing neighborhood of Isola, historically labeled by attracted developers as a somewhat degraded area crossed by the railways of the Garibaldi train station and disconnected from the rest of the city (Porta Nuova, n.d.). Hereby it is worth mentioning Isola’s historical background to understand how Porta Nuova has changed it.

FIGURE 1.1 New building and infrastructure of Porta Nuova. The Library of Trees is a central park connecting the Isola neighborhood to the rest of the new Porta Nuova district. Elevated maintenance costs are due to its 90,000 m² surface area, which contains 450 trees and 90,000 plants. The Vertical Forest towers are the buildings covered by trees. (Photo by: Goldmund100, via Wikimedia Commons.)

The name Isola (island in Italian) characterizes the neighborhood’s spatial isolation due to its location behind the extensive walls of the rail yards of the Garibaldi station, which used to make it a relatively unattractive and thus more affordable neighborhood (Brizioli, 2015). After World War I, a wave of Southern Italian immigrants moved to Milan to access the fast-emerging industrial jobs. Many of the new engineering industries were located in Isola, such as Brown Bover, Isaria and Gondand (Signorelli, 2015). For this reason, the large majority of inhabitants living in Isola were industry workers. It was here that the first Italian worker rights movements developed and fomented the concentration of socialist political activity. During World War II, Isola represented one of the cores of Italian partisans’ resistance¹ (Brizioli, 2015). At the time, residents could afford to buy Isola’s relatively cheap housing. Many of the historical residents owned these properties until not long ago. Additionally, Isola also hosted several social housing buildings, making poorer classes an integral part of the neighborhood.

Already 50–60 years ago, Isola was a lively place. The diverse cultures of immigrant workers brought to Isola different Italian regional restaurants and the political activism brought frequent public events. If on the one hand, Isola’s urban fabric and connectivity were poor; on the other, it was a vibrant neighborhood and thus became an attractive location. It is worth mentioning that it was since World War II that the municipality and private investors had made attempts to redevelop the area of Isola. Yet, these projects had not been successful; in the 1990s, locals and activists of Isola successfully appealed against two urban plans not in full compliance with city regulations on permitted building cubage (Anselmi, 2014). Nonetheless, along with the European trend, Milan’s industries started to shut down and the economy started to shift from the industrial to the service sector, leaving various residents unemployed and unable to afford more expensive living standards.

It the 1990s Isola also started hosting new centri sociali—political and cultural community centers usually characterized by left-wing politics, as well as artistic initiatives and boutiques. Yet, the newcomers were always very explicit about the wish of keeping Isola a diverse and inclusive neighborhood. In 2001, for instance, residents, artists and associations squatted an old factory located in the neighborhood’s only public park. La Stecca, as it was called, went on to become an artistic, cultural and political hub that also denounced the municipality’s scarce attention towards bottom-up movements, opposing its general top-down attitude towards re-urbanization (Brizioli, 2015). It was the symbol of Isola’s identity: a neighborhood with a strong and engaged civil society.

Yet, Isola’s unique profile made it increasingly attractive to the public and real estate developers (Brizioli, 2015), and despite the successful resident-led struggles against large-scale re-urbanization projects back in the 1990s, the municipality approved and supported the new re-urbanization project Porta Nuova in 2004. In 2007, local resistance and proposals for an alternative development plan failed to prevent the demolition of La Stecca and nearby old buildings to make space for Porta Nuova’s Vertical Forest towers (Figure 1.3). This setback epitomized the largest defeat of resistance groups (Brizioli, 2015), especially since the green area around La Stecca was the only public park in Isola. Resistance against Porta Nuova’s social and environmental impact continues today.

FIGURE 1.3 A view of Isola Pepe Verde (IPV), one of Milan’s community gardens in the Isola neighborhood located about 200 meters from the Vertical Forest towers. (Photo by: Barbara Barberis.)

Meanwhile, Hines, the site developer, defined Porta Nuova as “Milan’s Gate of Green,” a “heaven for pedestrians and cyclists” and a unique example of urban greening and sustainability for its use of innovative technology and materials (Porta Nuova, n.d., p. 8). The main eco-symbols in Porta Nuova are the significantly vast park, the Library of Trees designed by the Dutch studio Inside Outside, and the Vertical Forest residential towers, designed by Boeri Studio. These tree- and plant-covered buildings are conceived as a way to mitigate climate change, increase bird and insect biodiversity and reduce urban sprawl (Boeri, n.d.).

Overall, residents attribute Isola’s attractiveness at the end of the 1990s to its underground and charming character born from its diverse and tightly knit community. As construction began in Porta Nuova in 2006, Isola became “the place to be” at night for visitors, leading to the closure of many traditional retail stores like longtime panineria (sandwich) places that were replaced by trendy bars and burger restaurants. In interviews, residents and activists complained about noise at night, unaffordable home and store prices, privatization of street space for restaurant tables and loss of the traditional neighborhood identity.

Gentrification was felt almost immediately in the neighborhood, causing housing prices to soar and transforming the social fabric of the neighborhood. Fifteen years later, although still socially diverse, high rents and lack of sufficient social housing are compromising the ability of long-term residents to resist displacement. In their discourse, planners and developers have promoted urban sustainability through environmentally friendly spaces and buildings, but have neglected the social inclusion and well-being of existing residents.

FIGURE 1.2 The Vertical Forest towers. A juxtaposition between old and new characterized by the neighborhood of Isola versus Porta Nuova. (Photo by: Angelo Stara via Unsplash.)

Procedural injustice in the “green” transformation of Isola

In addition to increasing social inequalities, Isola’s activists denounced what they called a fake participatory process that lacked meaningful community planning. Between 2006 and 2009, Hines organized a participatory process consisting of more than 100 meetings with locals, but some activists saw this as a strategy to gain approval, consensus and legitimacy for the project rather than to meet residents’ demands. One activist said,

The participation process was a method to create consent and not a method to go back to the project and repostulate the project together … Their thinking was “If I don’t convince you, I have to find a way to split the groups and recreate consensus by organizing fun parties and stuff like that.”

In the end, the participatory process was perceived more as a negotiation over details—like the height of skyscrapers facing social housing, one resident recalls—rather than an inclusive decision-making process.

Furthermore, the developers did not fulfill their initial promise to preserve La Stecca, having demolished it to build the Vertical Forest towers. One activist recalls,

La Stecca was testimony of an industrial past … And they did not only destroy La Stecca, but also other beautiful ex-factories around it which were dismissed but were beautiful buildings. All those buildings were destroyed. They only kept one which became Catella’s foundation, all the rest is gone. This is like violence, it is an act of violence. It is the deleting of history.

The loss of cultural and social patrimony eroded the trust of residents in the participatory process. Many also regret the absence of promised public cultural spaces to compensate for the disproportionately high number of Porta Nuova’s private spaces. Put differently, residents saw the participatory process as a political move of “social washing” that masked the true nature of the project.

Lastly, activists denounce the ...