The Dangers of Eco-Gentrification
Greener isn’t always fairer.
Two years ago, I dragged my family halfway across Milan to see an apartment block. It was 31°C, we were near the end of a two-week holiday in Italy and my sister would far rather have sat in the shade, eating ice-cream.
In my defense, Bosco Verticale isn’t any old apartment block — technically it’s a pair of apartment blocks in the Porta Nuova district in Milan. Instantly recognizable, its famous green facade is made up of more than 900 trees, 5000 shrubs and 11,000 floral plants.
All this greenery isn’t just there for show. Globally, ambient air pollution kills 3 million people every year. Milan is the sixth most polluted city in Italy.
Looking for the cheapest and most effective way to improve air quality and absorb carbon dioxide? The answer, in short, is trees.
Every year, Bosco Verticale’s greenery transforms 44,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into oxygen, removes harmful dust particulates, keeps temperatures cool and reduces noise pollution.
Growing 6 m tall trees on the side of a 111 m tall building is no small feat. Trees had to be tested in a wind tunnel to see how it would behave at high altitudes and each tree is held in place with safety cables.
Bosco Verticale’s “green” credentials extend far beyond just its colour. Filtered wastewater is used to irrigate the plants, its rooftops are covered in solar panels and innovative heat pump technology reduces the energy needed for heating and cooling.
It’s easy to see why 17-year old aspiring structural engineer me was so impressed. Indeed, Bosco Verticale has had plenty of praise. In 2014, it won the International Highrise Award, labeling it the “most beautiful and innovative highrise in the world.”
Stefano Boeri, the architect, describes it as a “home for trees that also houses humans and birds”. It sounds idyllic. There’s something distinctly feel-good about the thought of releasing 1200 ladybirds to improve the ecosystem.
The problem is this is only one side of the story.
Bosco Verticale was part of the larger re-urbanization of Porta Nuova. Long before it was even imagined, the area was defined by affordable housing, a largely working-class population, active networks of left-wing political activists and community centres.
In 2004, the municipality approved a proposal for a Porta Nuova Business District from American Real Estate developer, Gerald Hines. Despite fierce opposition from local residents, in 2007, existing buildings were demolished to make space for Porta Nuova’s new skyscrapers.
In 2010, Palazzo Lombardia, one of many more typical glass skyscrapers, was completed and enjoyed a brief skint as the tallest building in Italy. In 2012, the title was pinched by the Unicredit Tower, another Porta Nuova skyscraper. In 2014, Bosco Verticale was completed.
In 2017, Porta Nuova had a city GDP of €400 billion, making it the richest district in any city in Europe. The local authorities, the investors, the architects, the business people all gave themselves a pat on the back, labelled it a job-well-done.
In many ways, this is a familiar story. Original housing demolished, luxury office and apartment blocks going up in its place, rents skyrocketing and original residents having no choice but to move.
So familiar, in fact, it has a name. Eco-gentrification, as defined by the urban ecologist Sarah Dooling, is “the implementation of an environmental planning agenda related to public green spaces that leads to the displacement or exclusion of the most economically vulnerable human population while espousing an environmental ethic.”
It’s not just happening in Milan.
Opened to the public in 2009, New York City’s High Line turned 2.3 km of derelict elevated railway into a “park in the sky”. At first glance, the public park, owned by the City of New York, is a far cry from the largely privatized business district of Porta Nuova. However, the High Line has still had a profound effect on the socioeconomic character of the local area. Between 2003 and 2011, property values near the park increased 103%. Small businesses that had been there for decades closed. Lower income residents had no choice but to move out of the area.
Again, as the area became greener, its desirability increased and it became more and more expensive to live there. When eco-gentrification happens in city centres, lower income residents move to cheaper, more suburban neighbourhoods — with longer commutes and none of the benefits of original “greening” efforts.
It’s also not a new phenomenon.
Opened in 1847, Birkenhead Park in Merseyside was the first public park in Europe. While it was still in the early planning stages, the same people who commissioned the park bought large plots of land around it. Several years after the park was completed, they sold the land for a tidy profit.
Similarly, one of the main motivations behind New York City’s Central Park was to increase tax revenues and property values in the city. So much so, its own landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, later gathered evidence on rising land values around the park to build support for more public parks in other cities.
To make matters worse, an entire village owned mostly by Black people was destroyed to make space for Central Park. Before demolition, Seneca Village had over 250 residents, 3 churches and a school. In 1857, residents were ordered to leave their homes by eminent domain.
Public parks, buildings covered in trees, pedestrianized streets — they seem like no-brainers. Don’t get me wrong, goodness knows we need greener cities.
When it comes to the climate crisis, the Coalition for Urban Transitions argues “the battle for our planet will be won or lost in cities”. Globally, cities take up only 3% of land but are responsible for 75% of carbon emissions and 70% of energy consumption. Our cities need to be more sustainable.
But at what cost? Are “greening” initiatives worth it if they only add to social injustice? Are luxury apartment blocks covered in plants worth it if they’re completely unaffordable for the majority of the urban population?
In Porta Nuova, local activists believe “greening and sustainability were labels used as a way to justify an intervention that in essence constituted a privatisation project ultimately made for profit.” Bosco Verticale is the green face of the development, but it isn’t really what Porta Nuova is about.
Coined in 1968 by Henri Lefebvre, the “Right to the City” movement demands that “people, not capital or the state, must have control over how cities are designed, shaped and run.”
Eco-gentrification shows just how often this isn’t the case. More needs to be done to ensure that cities of tomorrow are both greener and fairer than cities of today.
