Eco-Professionals, Gentrification, and the Contradictions of the Climate Friendly City

• In Event: 438 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology. Questioning the City: New Directions in Urban Theory

Abstract

Abstract: We offer the idea of carbon gentrification to capture several related processes that threaten housing justice in the climate friendly city. As a “low carbon” lifestyle has become normatively good for many environmentally conscious people, more middle and upper income residents desire to live near public transit lines, on streets that are bike and pedestrian friendly, and in higher-density, mixed use areas. Local governments have also implemented a range of policies aimed at achieving these development and transportation goals. This has, in part, increased property values in neighborhoods with these amenities, displacing lower income, often non-white, residents. Increased prevalence of creative and technology workers appears to accelerate this trend. The actual environmental outcomes of carbon gentrifiers, however, may not be what we expect, as new research on greenhouse gas emissions shows that more affluent residents have much larger carbon footprints because of their consumption, even when reductions in transportation or building energy emissions are included. Indeed, throughout the paper we argue that this conception of gentrification builds on an understanding of cities as nodes in a world of flows, in contrast to the bounded city model implicit to prevailing accounts of ecological gentrification. We end with an empirical exploration of an area in Seattle, Washington we believe is experiencing carbon gentrification, and a conceptual discussion of theoretical questions, data needs, and political projects that require much more attention by urban scholars interested in housing justice or urban sustainability.

Authors

• Jennifer Rice, University of Georgia

• Daniel Aldana Cohen, University of Pennsylvania

• Joshua Long, Southwestern University

• Jason Jurevich, Portland State University