Transcription

*Transcipt was generated automatically, its accuracy may vary.

0:12

Welcome to the Feminist Park podcast.

I'm Kwame.

And I'm Leilani.

It's great to be kicking off this journey with you all today.

Yeah.

We're diving into work that's really closely tied to the vision behind the Feminist Park project, which was founded by Hussain Stuck.

That project's goal is pretty ambitious, isn't it?

0:28

Imagining these truly equitable public spaces, starting with the idea for an intersectional feminist park right here in Berlin.

Exactly.

And this podcast, well, it's kind of an extension of that.

We're going to be digging into the academic research that, you know, supports and informs that kind of vision.

0:46

We'll be taking these dense, sometimes quite academic papers and really pulling out the core and insights.

And looking at them through specific lenses.

Things like environmental justice, intersectionality, anti colonial thought, queer theory.

All the stuff that helps us think critically about space.

1:03

Imagine stepping into, you know, the perfect urban park.

We all have that picture in our heads, right?

Big trees, maybe a fountain?

Exactly.

Shade, kids laughing somewhere off in the distance, people just relaxing, breathing cleaner air.

It feels like this pure, essential, good for a city.

1:20

Absolutely.

Green space is always seen as a positive, a universal benefit.

But what if it's not always that simple?

What if the very act of creating that beautiful green space inadvertently ends up pushing people out?

People who might need those benefits the most.

1:37

Precisely what if that lovely park comes with a hidden social cost?

Welcome to the Deep Dive.

We're the podcast that unpacks complex ideas, gets you the core insights, basically helps you get well informed fast.

And today we're diving deep into a really fascinating and maybe a bit unsettling academic article.

1:55

It's called Assessing Green Gentrification in Historically Disenfranchised Neighborhoods, a Longitudinal and Spatial Analysis of Barcelona.

It's by Isabel Englofsky and her colleagues.

And it's not just about Barcelona, really.

It touches on something much bigger.

Yeah.

It's about people planning power, the future of cities, you could say, because the core question this deep dive asks is pretty provocative.

2:18

When cities go all in on urban greening, does it actually spread those environmental goodies more fairly?

Or does it maybe surprisingly, end up creating a new kind of inequality, what the researchers call green gentrification?

And Barcelona is the perfect place to look at this.

2:33

It's, you know, famous for its urban transformation.

Right.

They've done a lot.

They really have, and this study was incredibly meticulous.

They looked at 18 new green spaces created specifically in socially vulnerable neighborhoods back in the 90s and early 2000s.

Vulnerable meaning lower income, less access to green space.

2:51

Historic.

Exactly.

And then they tracked what happened over time, who moved in, who moved out, income changes, that sort of thing.

And the really fascinating part, the kind of twist is that while some areas did see positive effects for the original residents, just like you'd hope.

3:07

Others experienced this green gentrification.

So we're going to unpack exactly what that means, how it played out in Barcelona, and importantly, what lessons we can draw for urban planning everywhere.

Because if you've ever wondered about the, let's say, the full cost of Urban Development, or how a seemingly good thing like a new park can ripple outwards in complex ways.

3:28

Then this deep dive is definitely for you.

We're going beyond just looking at the pretty trees, understand the messy human reality of making cities greener, and hopefully more just OK, let's start with the basics.

Why are cities everywhere so keen on adding green spaces?

3:45

What are the benefits everyone agrees on?

Oh, the list is long and pretty well established.

I mean, First off, public health, it's huge.

Well, green spaces encourage active lifestyles, right?

People walk more, run more, Plus they literally clean the air and reduce noise pollution which cuts down on related diseases.

4:01

Cleaner air, less noise.

OK, that makes sense.

And it's measurable.

The study actually mentions research from Barcelona showing its urban forest pull out over 300 tons of air pollutants each year.

Wow, 300 tons.

Yeah, and prevent 5000 tons of CO2 emissions.

4:19

That's a massive environmental service right in the city.

That's incredible.

So parks are like the city's lungs, basically.

In a way, yes, But it's not just physical health.

They're also really important for social cohesion.

They act as natural meeting places.

You know, where neighbors interact, build ties.

4:36

Think of a park bench, kids playing together.

That's where community happens.

Social capital gets built.

Like a shared living room for the neighborhood.

Exactly, and all that connection, that exposure to nature, it links to better mental well-being too.

Less likelihood of poor mental health for people near green.

4:53

Space.

OK, so physical health, mental health, community building, what else?

Well, there are economic and broader ecological benefits, too.

Good parks boost an area's identity, make it more desirable.

Which can increase property values.

Yes, and potentially boost local economies.

5:10

Ecologically.

They increase biodiversity, help with stormwater runoff, reduce the urban heap island effect making cities cooler.

OK.

So it seems like a total win win.

Better health, stronger communities, economic uplift, ecological gains.

Why wouldn't city want more green space?

5:28

But that's where it gets complicated because that economic uplift you mentioned, that desirability factor, Yeah, that can be a double edged sword, a really sharp one actually.

How so?

Because despite all these clear benefits, the study and others like it show these benefits often aren't shared equally.

5:44

Meaning the original residents might not get to enjoy them.

Exactly.

Studies, especially from the US, started showing that creating nice green amenities could actually make disadvantaged residents vulnerable to being pushed out.

And that leads us to this idea of the green space paradox, right?

6:00

You break that down.

Yes, it's a key concept.

The paradox is basically this.

You implement an environmental plan like building parks to improve things for everyone, but it ends up displacing or excluding the most economically vulnerable people even while you're promoting this great environmental ethics.

6:19

So the very.

Thing meant to help might actually harm the people who need it most.

Precisely.

The new park makes the area nicer, more desirable.

That attracts investment, pushes up housing cost, property values.

And suddenly the long term residents may be renters or those on fixed incomes can't afford to stay.

6:37

Exactly.

The beautiful park becomes a driver of displacement.

What stands out to you most about that definition?

It seems so counterintuitive.

For me, it's that it forces us to see urban greening not just as this purely good, politically neutral thing.

Right, it's not just about planting trees.

6:54

No, It shows how easily social equity goals can get sidelined by real estate development, by profit motives.

It can lead to what some call post political sustainability.

Post political Yeah, the idea that greening is so obviously good, it's beyond debate, so we don't have the tough political conversations about who benefits and who might lose out.

7:13

And that risks creating even more inequality, just maybe hidden behind a nice green facade.

That's the danger.

And environmental ethic gets used, maybe unintentionally, to drive an economic process that hurts vulnerable people.

OK, so to really get this green gentrification, we probably need a better handle on gentrification itself.

7:33

We hear the word a lot, but what's the basic mechanism?

Fundamentally, a lot of it goes back to Neil Smith's rent gap theory.

The rent gap, yeah.

The basic idea is you have an area that's seen as undesirable, maybe rundown, so the rents it's currently generating are low.

7:49

OK.

But someone, an investor or developer, sees its potential.

Maybe it's in a good location.

Maybe things are changing nearby, like a new park being built.

They see the gap between the low actual rent and the much higher potential rent they could get if they fix stood up and attracted wealthier tenants.

8:07

So.

It's the difference between what a property is earning and what it could earn.

Exactly.

That gap is like a magnet for investment.

People buy up property, renovate, rebrand, rents and prices shoot up and the original lower income residents often get priced out.

It drives this rapid social and economic change.

8:23

It's like spotting an undervalued asset in the city.

Pretty much.

And this isn't a new idea.

Ruth Glass was writing about it back in the 60s in London.

Ruth Glass?

Yeah, she coined the term gentrification, seeing how working class areas were being taken over by a new urban Gentry.

She noted the physical changes, renovated houses, new shops, but also the shift in the whole social vibe of the place.

8:45

It wasn't just about money changing hands, but the whole character shifting.

Right.

It was about changing identities, consumption patterns, the whole fabric of the community.

And these shifts often involve more than just income levels, right?

There's usually a demographic change too.

That's a really key point because income and class often correlate strongly with race and ethnicity.

9:05

Gentrifying areas very frequently see an increase in, for instance, white populations.

This isn't just a side effect, it signals a deep change in the social makeup, and that's often where you see major political fights over inequality as long term, often minority, residents resist being displaced by wealthier, often wider newcomers.

9:26

It sounds like a process that's only gotten more intense and widespread over the decades.

Oh, absolutely.

Since the 90s, it's really ramped up.

It's not just happening organically.

It's often an explicit strategy by city governments working with big private investors.

A strategy, Yeah, to attract capital, boost the tax base, rebrand the city.

9:46

We even have terms like super gentrification for global elites moving in or hyper gentrification in super expensive markets like Brooklyn.

It's gone global.

So given how complex and frankly controversial this is, how do researchers actually measure it?

10:02

The study mentions it's not easy.

No, it's definitely not straightforward.

You can't just draw a neat line around a gentrified area based only on numbers.

Data standards vary.

Things get messy, right?

But quantitative data is still really the best tool we have for tracking relative changes overtime across big areas.

10:19

The absolute key though, and this study really emphasizes it, is using multiple indicators.

Not just relying on one thing like property value.

Exactly.

Relying on one thing gives you a skewed picture.

You need to look at a whole dashboard of changes.

So.

What's typically on that dashboard?

What do researchers like Angolowski look at?

10:36

The standard things are like a median income, race or ethnicity if available, age, education levels like the percentage with bachelor's degrees, poverty rates, home ownership, housing values, rent levels.

Measured at a pretty local level, like census tracts.

10:51

Yeah, as local as possible, but people are also looking at less traditional things now too.

Like what?

Things like housing instruction patterns, who's getting mortgages, even social media activity.

Or you know, the classic sign how many new fancy coffee shops are opening up?

Right, the coffee shop index.

11:08

Kind of.

The point is triangulation, using several different data points to build a more complete, reliable picture of what's happening.

Which brings up that challenge for Barcelona.

They don't collect race and ethnicity data the same way the US does.

How did this study get around that?

11:24

We need to remember that for later.

That's where the proxies come in, which we'll definitely get back to.

But first, let's connect this back to the greening aspect.

How does sustainability planning fit into gentrification?

Right, the socio ecological underpinnings.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

The green infrastructure, the park acts as a catalyst, and the whole sustainability framing can actually help the process along, sometimes even masking the displacement.

11:47

Masking it how?

By presenting it as purely positive, like we discussed with the post Political idea, greening seems like a universal good, so it avoids scrutiny.

So a plan that looks environmentally friendly might actually be pushing social equity down the priority list, maybe in favor of real estate interests.

12:05

That's the risk.

It can happen even if the original advocates had the best intentions.

The environmental goal gets Co opted you could say.

And this study specifically highlights that it's not just about losing access to general city benefits, but specifically losing access to the ecosystem services the green space provides.

12:23

Exactly.

That's a crucial point.

Think about it.

The cleaner air, the cooling effect on a hot day, the quieter streets, those tangible environmental benefits become luxuries.

Concentrated in the nicer, greener, wealthier areas.

While the people who are maybe pushed out end up in areas that still lack those things, it's a form of environmental injustice baked into the urban landscape.

12:45

OK, let's zoom into Barcelona's own story with green spaces.

Its approach wasn't static, right?

It changed a lot overtime, especially after the Franco dictatorship ended.

What was greening like back then in the 70s and early 80s?

Right after Franco, Spanish cities had huge deficits, poor quality housing, lack of public services and very little green space.

13:07

So after the first democratic elections in 79, Barcelona's new City Council made increasing parks a major priority.

Why then specifically?

It was a direct response to what people needed and demanded decades of neglect.

The focus was squarely on social needs, creating places for people to meet, playgrounds for kids, spots for the elderly to gather, improving daily life.

13:27

So very community focused.

Absolutely, it was about rebuilding the social fabric.

The croated Dental Call park from 1976 is a good example.

Functional, community oriented, not about grand statement.

Then came the 1992 Olympics.

That seems like a massive turning point for the whole city, including its parks.

13:44

Huge turning point.

The Olympics shifted everything.

Green spaces suddenly became tied to the needs of this mega event about projecting Barcelona onto the world stage.

So less about local needs, more about image.

Pretty much the city started dealing directly with private developers, building Olympic infrastructure.

14:02

That social focus, which was so strong before, really faded.

They called it strategic urbanism.

Strategic for whom, I guess.

Good question.

The new Olympic parks, like Port Olympic or Public New Park were designed very differently.

More aesthetic, more monumental.

14:17

Great for tourists.

But maybe not so great for just hanging out if you live nearby.

Fewer spaces for that neighborhood level interaction.

Yeah.

More top down design, less community input.

And after the Olympics, the city was suddenly globally famous.

How did that affect park development in the mid 90s?

14:34

They definitely capitalized on that fame.

The focus shifted heavily towards boosting real estate values and tourism.

Park design got strongly linked to economic development schemes, often using private money.

Barcelin at a park from 96 is an example from that era.

How did the locals feel about this, especially in the older neighborhoods?

14:52

That there was pushback.

A lot of community groups saw it as social cleansing.

Strongerds.

Yeah, they felt the traditional identity of places like El Rival was being erased for tourists and global money.

They argued the official Barcelona model, balancing social needs and growth, was actually ignoring and displacing long term residents.

15:09

So a real tension between the official story and the lived experience.

Definitely.

And that trend just continued really into the late 90s, early 2000's.

The focus was on on redeveloping the last big industrial areas.

More economic development.

Yeah, even big events like the 2004 Universal Form of Cultures were basically business ventures.

15:30

And then you had massive projects like Diagonal Mar.

Ah yes, diagonal Mar.

That's a famous one.

Right in the Kabul new area, luxury housing centered around Diagonal Mar Park, the second biggest in the.

City sounds impressive.

Impressive.

Maybe, but heavily criticized.

It was planned with almost zero public input, focused way more on aesthetics and corporate identity than actual social use for the mixed community around it.

15:53

Lots of big sculptural stuff, not many places to just sit and chat.

So that whole period really solidified an approach that prioritized wealthier residents, big developers * architects.

Pretty much often at the expense of local needs or participation.

16:08

And knowing this whole history is absolutely crucial to understanding why the study found what it found.

OK, so this study is a big deal, partly because it did this citywide quantitative look at green gentrification, which you said is rare.

How do they actually pull that off?

Managing all that data for a city like Barcelona seems daunting.

16:27

It was a massive undertaking, incredibly rigorous.

They focus their data collection on that key period of intense redevelopment, 1992 to 2004, looking specifically at parks built then.

Not just any parks, though.

No.

Crucially, they selected 18 parks located in socially vulnerable neighborhoods, areas with below average income and historically poor access to green space.

16:48

So they were specifically looking at places where greening was supposed to help the most disadvantaged.

Exactly, which makes any gentrification finding even more significant.

Geographically, they covered five key districts, the historic center Sutat Vela, the redeveloped industrial area St.

17:04

Marty and three working class districts, Jorge Guinardo, New Barris, San Andreu, a real cross section.

And the data itself, how detailed was it?

They got the best available from the city, the highest resolution possible for things like home sales and income.

17:20

They used small research zones or SRZS.

SRZS how small is that?

I think maybe just a few city blocks, sometimes even smaller, super granular for other things like education, age, immigrants, they use census tracts, which are a bit bigger, like mini neighborhoods, and they track this data consistently up to 2008 just before the financial crisis hit and potentially skewed things.

17:42

OK, now for the really clever bits.

Spain has high home ownership, so tracking direct displacement, people selling up and leaving is hard.

How do they measure that vulnerability?

They used elderly living alone, right?

Yeah, that was a really smart move because ownership is so high.

The people most vulnerable to rising costs are renters, obviously, but also owners on fixed incomes who suddenly can't afford rising taxes or just the higher cost of living in a newly expensive area.

18:08

The elderly living alone often fit that profile perfectly.

Fixed incomes maybe more likely renters.

And even if they own, they're really sensitive to cost increases and changes in their social environment.

Seeing them leave an area can be a quiet signal of displacement pressure.

18:24

That makes a lot of sense.

A sensitive indicator.

And the other challenge, No direct race data.

How did they tackle tracking those kinds of demographic shifts?

Common and gentrification.

Another really insightful approach.

They use the nationality of immigrants as a proxy.

18:39

They carefully distinguish between global S immigrants from Latin America and North Africa Asia generally coming for a lower wage work, and global N immigrants from Europe, US, Japan often coming for professional jobs, business or real estate investment.

So tracking those two groups allowed them to see shifts in the socioeconomic profile of the population, kind of indirectly measuring that stratification that happens with gentrification.

19:05

Exactly.

It's not a perfect substitute for race data, but given the context of Barcelona's migration patterns, it provided a really valuable way to see who was moving in and, relatively speaking, who might be getting squeezed out or whose influx was slowing down.

Really creative methodology.

19:22

OK, so they gathered all this detailed, innovative data, but how do they analyze it to see if the parks were actually causing the changes, not just nearby?

That's the crucial causality question.

Right, correlation isn't causation.

They used 2 main strategies.

First was a buffer analysis.

19:38

Pretty straightforward.

They drew virtual circles around each park. 100 meters, 300 meters, 500 meters out.

Like ripples in a pond.

Kind of then they looked at the changes, income, education, etcetera inside those buffers and compared them to the changes in the district as a whole.

19:53

Did things change more dramatically closer to the park?

That tells you what was happening locally.

OK, that identifies local hotspots, but to get it, why and if the park was the driver, they needed something more powerful.

Exactly.

That's where the regression analysis came, the heavy statistical lifting.

20:09

They started with Ordinary least Squares regression, or OLS.

OLS.

That's a standard method, right?

Very standard, but it basically assumes the relationship is the same everywhere in the city.

Like the effect of being near a park is constant across all neighborhoods.

20:24

It probably isn't true in a complex city.

Almost certainly not, and the OLS models didn't actually fit the Barcelona data very well which confirm this.

So the real breakthrough was using geographically weighted regression, or GWR.

GWR.

What makes that different?

GWR is brilliant because it doesn't assume one-size-fits-all.

20:43

It creates a local model for each specific point on the map.

It gives more weight to nearby data points.

So instead of 1 average effect for the whole city.

You get a map showing where the relationship between park proximity and say, income increase is strongest, and where it's weaker or nonexistent.

20:59

It lets the relationships vary across space.

That sounds much more realistic for urban analysis, like focusing a lens neighborhood by neighborhood.

Precisely.

It allows you to pinpoint where the park seems to be having a real, statistically significant impact on those demographic shifts.

21:15

And what do they?

Expect to see with GWR in areas that we're experiencing green gentrification.

They expected two things mainly.

First, a high explanatory power, a high R-squared value, meaning the GWR model including distance to the park did a really good job predicting the changes in that specific area, OK.

21:35

And second, negative coefficient values for the gentrification indicators, that just means as distance to the park decreases, you get closer the indicator increases like higher income, more education, more global N immigrants closer to the park.

And the opposite for vulnerable groups.

Fewer elderly alone, fewer global S immigrants closer.

21:53

In right methodology nailed.

Let's get into the findings.

What did the data actually show?

Starting with education, often an early sign of neighborhood change.

Did they see more bachelor's degrees near the new parks?

They did, and very clearly in certain areas, the expectation for green gentrification held true.

22:11

The percentage of residents with degrees increased much more significantly near the parks in the Sant Marti, Sutat Vela and San Andre districts compared to the rest of those districts.

Any standout examples?

Pablenu Park in Sant Marti was striking.

The areas right around it saw an increase of almost 28 percentage points in residents with bachelor's degrees. 28 points, that's huge.

22:32

It really is.

Compare that to the district as a whole, which only saw about a 7.6% increase, so a massive localized influx of high, highly educated people.

Other parks nearby, like Cascades Port Olympic, showed similar, though maybe slightly less dramatic, jumps.

22:48

And do the GWR models back this up?

Do they show the parks were likely driving this?

Strongly, the GWR models explain up to 70% of the variance in education levels.

That's a very high R-squared and critically, the strongest explanatory power.

And the expected negative coefficients closer to park higher education were clustered right around those sent Marty parks.

23:07

It really pinpointed them as hotspots.

What about parks in other areas?

Interestingly, in Jorda, Guinardo and New Barris, the opposite happened.

Bachelor's degrees actually declined near parks, mirroring the district trend.

So no sign of this type of gentrification there.

23:23

OK, now for that vulnerability indicator residents over 65 living alone, Did their numbers decrease near parks in the gentrifying areas, suggesting displacement?

Yes, that trend was observed too, specifically in all the parks in Sutot Villa and Sant Marti.

So fewer older residents sticking around near those new green spaces.

23:41

Exactly.

Pablena Park again showed a noticeable drop, about 3%.

The GWR model for this wasn't quite as powerful As for education.

The R-squared was lower, but it still showed a significant spatial pattern.

Meaning it wasn't random.

Right.

It suggested a systematic process, potentially showing elderly residents moving out from the central eastern areas towards the northern, maybe more affordable districts.

24:05

And this wasn't just statistics, right?

Didn't interviews confirm this?

Yes, that's a key point.

Interviews with city staff confirm that displacement of older residents from the Old Town to the periphery was happening during this period, driven by real estate speculation.

It suggests the parks weren't the sole cause, but maybe acted as an amenity afloat, as the study says, accompanying these broader shifts.

24:27

OK.

Let's talk immigrants, the global N versus global S proxy.

What did those numbers show?

Well, first immigration overall was rising fast in Barcelona then, so both groups generally increased everywhere.

But the relative changes were key.

Parks in Saint Marty and Cascades Park in Ciutat Vela saw much, much bigger relative increases in Global N immigrants compared to their districts.

24:50

So a targeted influx of more affluent immigrants into those specific greened areas.

Exactly, and at the same time, the percentage of global S immigrants in those same areas tended to grow more slowly than the district average.

A relative slowing down or squeezing out perhaps?

And the GWR did it confirm this pattern was linked to the parks?

25:08

Very strongly.

R-squared values were really high here, 72% for Global S, 74% for Global North.

By 2008.

The models clearly showed that being closer to parks like Barcelona, Cascades, Port Olympic, Poblano, et cetera meant significantly more Global N immigrants and relatively fewer Global South immigrants, compelling evidence of a changing social mix tied to the green spaces.

25:30

All right, let's follow the money.

Household income.

Did it shoot up near the parks in these gentrifying zones?

Yes, absolutely.

The buffer areas around the parks in Saint Marti and Cascades Park in Seattle Vela saw the biggest jumps in income, far outpacing their districts.

Any specific figures that stand out?

Port Olympic and public new parks again nearby area saw income rise by 26.7% and 20.5% respectively, the whole Cent Martu district only a 2.8% increase overall.

25:55

Wow so come with skyrocketing right next to the parks compared to the wider area.

Massively and the GWR confirmed this strongly too, explaining up to 62% of the income variance.

The relationship was clearly negative in set.

Marty get closer to the park, income goes way up.

Powerful evidence linking green space to an influx of wealth.

26:13

OK, but here's where it got weird right Home sale values.

You'd expect them to rise most near parks in gentrifying areas, but that wasn't quite what they found.

This was the real curveball and it's so important.

Counterintuitively, it was only the parks in the historically working class districts, Jorda, Guinardo, San Andre, New Barris where home sale values rose more right near the park compared to the district average.

26:38

So places like Prince of Digerona or Can Drago Parks saw bigger price jumps locally.

Yeah, increases of 7887% sent nearby, while their districts rose maybe 5666%.

So there the parks seem to directly boost local property values significantly.

26:55

But in the fancy coat fill areas like Sam Marty where all the other gentrification signs were flashing.

Their home sale values actually rose less right next to the parks compared to the district as a whole.

Prices went up, sure, but the district wide boom was even bigger.

So what does that mean?

Parks weren't driving up prices there.

27:11

It suggests that in those already redeveloping highly desirable areas, the park is an important amenity for the wealthy buyers moving in, but maybe not the main thing driving the price explosion itself.

Other things were more important, like the massive redevelopment plans, the overall rebranding.

27:28

Exactly.

Those larger forces might be lifting the whole district's values, and the park is just part of the attractive package, not the initial engine of value increase.

In the same way, it might be in a less hot area.

What's the big take away from that surprising finding then?

27:44

It hammers home while you must look at multiple indicators, relying only on home sales would give you a totally wrong picture of gentrification in San Marquis.

It shows parks can feel gentrification in complex ways but aren't always the single biggest driver, especially in already rapidly changing areas.

28:02

OK, so they looked at all these pieces.

Education, elderly, immigrants, income, home sales.

Then they put it all together in a composite score to pinpoint the green gentrification hotspots.

Yes, they synthesized it.

Parks got points if their buffer zones showed stronger gentrification trends than the district.

28:18

Across those key indicators, Max score was 4 out of four.

And the results?

Where was green gentrification strongest?

Strongest a perfect 44 rating was around Pablo New Park and the Port Olympic Parks right in those Sant Marti and Ciutat Vela areas heavily redeveloped around the Olympics.

28:37

Any moderate cases?

Moderate 34 were the Diagonal Mart parks, also Sant Marti and Princep de Girona garden.

Jorge Guinardo, possibly because it's close to an already gentrified area.

And where was it basically absent?

The rest of the parks in Seatac, Villa and the Northwestern District scored low 02 points, and the GWR findings consistently back this up.

28:58

Proximity to parks was a significant predictor of change in those specific gentrifying areas, not elsewhere.

It wasn't just random chance.

One of the really crucial insights here is that this green gentrification in Barcelona wasn't just happening randomly park by park.

It was often tied into much bigger plants.

29:15

The parks acted as floats, you could say.

Floats, meaning they help support wider redevelopment.

Exactly.

They were often integral parts of larger strategies.

That takes on Marty again, where we saw so much green gentrification, that whole district was undergoing the massive 22 at Urban Renewal project.

29:33

Right, turning old industrial land into tech hubs and vancy apartments.

Precisely, and the parks built there, like Poblanu or Diagonal Mar were key amenities designed to attract the desired businesses and residents for that transformation.

They helped float the whole ambitious project.

29:50

They were part of the package deal.

OK, that makes sense, but what about the areas that didn't gentrify?

Why were they different than northwestern districts, for example?

Those areas have a very different character.

They're long established working class neighborhoods, often with older housing from the Franco era, lots of immigrants and migrants from other parts of Spain, especially New Barris.

30:09

They're also generally more cut off from the city center's buzz and sometimes face, you know, a certain stigma.

That whole combination, older housing, working class identity, relative isolation just made them less attractive targets for the kind of large scale market driven redevelopment and gentrification seen elsewhere.

30:27

So their existing character almost acted as a buffer in a way.

In a sense, yes.

And even within the historic center Sitar Vela, results were mixed.

Some parks like Saint Paul do camp in the Super dense revol or parts of Barcelonetta surrounded by commercial stuff didn't show strong green gentrification signals, which suggests.

30:47

It suggests that in really dense, complex historic areas, the dynamics are even more tangled.

You might need more qualitative on the ground research to fully understand why some pockets resist change.

OK, But maybe the most critical and honestly most troubling finding goes beyond just displacement.

31:03

It's about where vulnerable people ended up, a sort of redistricting distribution.

Yes, this is profound.

While some areas gentrified, the study also found that many parks in Skita, Zella and those northwestern districts actually gained global S immigrants and elderly residents living alone.

31:19

So on paper, these vulnerable groups got access to new green space.

That sounds good, right?

It does, but it raises that huge question, was it by choice, or were they pushed out of the gentrifying areas and ended up concentrated in these other neighborhoods?

Greener, yes, but maybe more peripheral, more fragmented.

31:38

A bitter kind of gain, potentially gaining a park but losing your community or connections.

Precisely, and again, interviews and other studies confirm these flows vulnerable residents being excluded or displaced from central Barcelona.

This points to what the researchers call green goods polarization and resegregation.

31:56

Green goods, polarization and resegregation.

That sounds really significant.

Break that down for.

Us It means the city's environmental benefits.

The green goods are becoming divided.

Privileged groups concentrate in the desirable green, often gentrified areas.

Effectively claiming those benefits.

32:12

While vulnerable groups get clustered, even if in areas with new parks, into neighborhoods that might be more socially isolated, further from opportunities disconnected from their old networks.

So they get the park, but maybe lose out on other crucial aspects of city life and well-being.

32:28

Exactly, it's a fundamental shift in the city's social geography.

Environmental improvements, instead of lifting everyone up, end up deepening inequality, creating a city that might look greener but is actually less.

Just hashtag tag tag outro.

Wow, OK, that was a really deep dive into green gentrification in Barcelona.

32:48

We went from the simple idea of parks being good to seeing how complex and sometimes damaging their unintended consequences can be.

Yeah, displacement, resegregation.

It's a sobering picture.

The big take away seems to be that urban greening just isn't a simple magic bullet policy.

33:03

Its effects depend hugely on the city's context, its history, inequalities, other big development plans.

Absolutely.

And proximity to a park can drive gentrification, We saw that.

But it's often tangled up in much larger forces.

It's not always the sole engine, especially in areas already undergoing massive change.

33:20

It's.

Complicated.

Which leaves a huge challenge for cities, right?

For planners, advocates, how do you make places greener without creating these new divides?

How do you ensure everyone benefits?

That's the $1,000,000 question.

Is just building parks enough or do you need strong policies alongside them to protect existing residents, guarantee affordability?

33:41

Ensure people have the right to stay.

It really shifts the focus.

It does.

So maybe next time you're enjoying a park in your own city, take a moment.

Think beyond the trees and the benches.

Think about the unseen forces that shaped that space, Who was involved, who benefited most.

33:57

And maybe, just maybe, who might have been pushed aside to make way for it.

That's a powerful thought.

Because the real challenge, the heart of sustainable urbanism, is making sure that a greener city is also fundamentally A juster city for everyone who lives there.

We really hope this deep dive gave you some new perspectives, maybe some tough questions to chew on.

34:17

What stands out to you about green gentrification?

We encourage you to keep looking critically at how our cities change and who those changes truly serve.

This knowledge is a tool really, a tool for seeing your city differently and potentially for helping to change it.

34:32

It's been a really insightful deep dive.

I think this document provides such a vital framework, especially for projects like the Feminist Park Project that are trying to build something fundamentally different.

It shows just how interlinked urban design and social justice are.

It really does, but it also shows the scale of the challenge right?

34:49

It requires sustained effort, real commitment and a genuine willingness to shift power dynamics in how cities get made and managed.

Definitely.

It makes you think about how we ensure those voices, the ones that have been excluded, are actually heard and centered.

There's another quote from Sarah Ahmed in the Handbook that feels relevant here.

35:08

Come on, she says.

If you have to shout to be heard, you are heard as shouting.

That's powerful.

It makes you ponder, doesn't it?

How can the design of public space itself work differently?

How can it amplify the voices of those who've been historically silenced, ensuring their needs are met without them having to shout just to be noticed?

35:28

How can design itself listen?

That's a really provocative thought to end on.

A lot to think about.

Indeed, thanks for joining us for this deep dive.