Urban green grabbing : Residential real estate developers discourse and practice in gentrifying Global North neighborhoods
García-Lamarca, Melissa LU
; Anguelovski, Isabelle
; Cole, Helen V.S.
; Connolly, James J.T.
; Pérez-del-Pulgar, Carmen
; Shokry, Galia
and Triguero-Mas, Margarita
(2022)
In Geoforum
128.
p.1-10
- Abstract
In the movement towards building greener and more sustainable cities, real estate developers are increasingly embracing not only green building construction but broader strategies and action related to urban greening. To date, their motivations and role in this broader urban greening dynamic remains underexplored, yet essential to dissect how greening is sustained and real estate development legitimized in revitalizing neighborhoods. With an eye to better understand green urban capitalist development processes underway amidst financialized nature and urban growth, and the equity impacts they entail, we explore residential real estate developers urban greening discourses and practices. Through a novel dataset of 42 interviews with... (More)
In the movement towards building greener and more sustainable cities, real estate developers are increasingly embracing not only green building construction but broader strategies and action related to urban greening. To date, their motivations and role in this broader urban greening dynamic remains underexplored, yet essential to dissect how greening is sustained and real estate development legitimized in revitalizing neighborhoods. With an eye to better understand green urban capitalist development processes underway amidst financialized nature and urban growth, and the equity impacts they entail, we explore residential real estate developers urban greening discourses and practices. Through a novel dataset of 42 interviews with private and non-profit residential real estate developers in 15 mid-sized American, Western European and Canadian cities, we uncover three differentiated but interconnected discourses around (i) financial benefits, (ii) consumer- or investor-driven demand and (iii) social dimensions behind developers’ interest in urban greening. We argue that developers embark on urban green grabbing through “green” discursive and material value appropriation and rent extraction strategies. Urban green grabbing is conceptually useful in depicting who benefits and how/when developers extract additional rent, surplus value, social capital and/or prestige from locating new residential projects adjacent to new or up-and-coming green amenities. Our work contributes to debates about urban greening's perceived position as a value-producing and rent-extracting good from both a political economy and political ecology perspective.
(Less)
- author
- García-Lamarca, Melissa
LU
; Anguelovski, Isabelle
; Cole, Helen V.S.
; Connolly, James J.T.
; Pérez-del-Pulgar, Carmen
; Shokry, Galia
and Triguero-Mas, Margarita
- publishing date
- 2022-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Gentrification, Green grabbing, Real estate developers, Rent extraction, Urban greening, Value
- in
- Geoforum
- volume
- 128
- pages
- 10 pages
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85120924069
- ISSN
- 0016-7185
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.11.016
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Funding Information: The research presented in this paper received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant agreement No. 678034]. HC and MTM are funded by Juan de la Cierva fellowships [FJCI-2018-035322, FJCI-2017-33842] awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Funding Information: The research presented in this paper received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant agreement No. 678034]. HC and MTM are funded by Juan de la Cierva fellowships [FJCI-2018-035322, FJCI-2017-33842] awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Publisher Copyright: © 2021
- id
- 0153d208-815a-4260-bf9d-0f360c6b42a3
- date added to LUP
- 2024-02-06 14:15:52
- date last changed
- 2024-02-08 14:16:11
@article{0153d208-815a-4260-bf9d-0f360c6b42a3,
abstract = {{<p>In the movement towards building greener and more sustainable cities, real estate developers are increasingly embracing not only green building construction but broader strategies and action related to urban greening. To date, their motivations and role in this broader urban greening dynamic remains underexplored, yet essential to dissect how greening is sustained and real estate development legitimized in revitalizing neighborhoods. With an eye to better understand green urban capitalist development processes underway amidst financialized nature and urban growth, and the equity impacts they entail, we explore residential real estate developers urban greening discourses and practices. Through a novel dataset of 42 interviews with private and non-profit residential real estate developers in 15 mid-sized American, Western European and Canadian cities, we uncover three differentiated but interconnected discourses around (i) financial benefits, (ii) consumer- or investor-driven demand and (iii) social dimensions behind developers’ interest in urban greening. We argue that developers embark on urban green grabbing through “green” discursive and material value appropriation and rent extraction strategies. Urban green grabbing is conceptually useful in depicting who benefits and how/when developers extract additional rent, surplus value, social capital and/or prestige from locating new residential projects adjacent to new or up-and-coming green amenities. Our work contributes to debates about urban greening's perceived position as a value-producing and rent-extracting good from both a political economy and political ecology perspective.</p>}},
author = {{García-Lamarca, Melissa and Anguelovski, Isabelle and Cole, Helen V.S. and Connolly, James J.T. and Pérez-del-Pulgar, Carmen and Shokry, Galia and Triguero-Mas, Margarita}},
issn = {{0016-7185}},
keywords = {{Gentrification; Green grabbing; Real estate developers; Rent extraction; Urban greening; Value}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{1--10}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Geoforum}},
title = {{Urban green grabbing : Residential real estate developers discourse and practice in gentrifying Global North neighborhoods}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.11.016}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.11.016}},
volume = {{128}},
year = {{2022}},
}