Just Green Enough: Contesting Environmental Gentrification in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

The willingness to pay for green apartments: The case of Nanjing, China

“…For instance, the market value of residential housing varies greatly between different income groups; the difference between the richest and poorest 10% of urban households is about 400% (Man et al, 2011). Although green buildings contribute to living quality and sustainability, the green construction may spur environmental gentrification and the displacement of lowincome residents (Curran and Hamilton, 2012;Hald, 2009;Wang, 2003). The housing affordability issue should be taken into account when upscaling green buildings.…”

From “Five Angry Women” to “Kick-ass Community”: Gentrification and Environmental Activism in Brooklyn and Beyond

“…We make the caveat, however, that there is significant slipperiness between the categories of demand-side environmental gentrification and gentrifier-enhanced activism. While our evidence supports the continued centrality of long-time resident activists and the active cultivation and implementation of an alternative sustainability ethic in Greenpoint, the future could see gentrifier voices taking over and/or priorities shifting (see Curran and Hamilton, 2012). Our purpose in proposing this alternative category is to remove the aura of inevitability pervasive in much of the literature on sustainability and urban redevelopment and to highlight the power, sophistication, and resilience of long-term neighbourhood activists.…”

“…In this case study, a committed group of long-term residents and gentrifiers, along with Riverkeeper and elite allies at various government agencies and scales, compensated for each others' imperfections and created a successful 'ecology of agents' (Evans, 2002). While cleanup is nowhere near complete, there is evidence that a common set of norms and values that supports the maintenance of a working waterfront-albeit a cleaner one-is being created throughout the neighbourhood (see Curran and Hamilton, 2012). This case study serves as an alternative narrative to the assumed inevitable pairing of environmental cleanup and accelerated gentrification in urban areas.…”

Environmental gentrification in a post-industrial landscape: the case of the Limhamn quarry, Malmö, Sweden

“…Copenhagen's Christiania, Europe's longest existing squatter settlement, constitutes another example of social and ecological transformation (Lund Hansen 2010). At Greenpoint, Brooklyn, local groups have employed the strategy of "just green enough" to counter the pressures of environmental gentrification, an initiative helped by the mortgage crisis in the USA housing market (Curran and Hamilton 2012).…”

“…The connection between the greening of post-industrial sites and gentrification can be fraught with contestation and the unique aspects of place and time. In some cases, the greening process can benefit existing poor communities (Groth andCorijn 2005, Lund Hansen 2010), in other situations it may not (Foster 2010, Checker 2011, Bryson 2012, and in yet other places, the impact may be contradictory (Curran and Hamilton 2012). In this paper, I interrogate the environmental gentrification in one postindustrial landscape, a limestone quarry in Limhamn, Malmö, hereafter Kalkbrottet, where industrial-scale extraction started in 1863 and ceased in 1994.…”