Sustainability is usually talked about as if it is automatically good. Cycle lanes, low-emission zones, green buildings and pedestrianised streets all sound like positive progress. In many ways, they are. But the geography behind this is more complex. Environmental improvement does not affect every place, or every group of people, in a uniform fashion. Sometimes, policies designed to make cities greener can end up making them more unequal and more divided. Cities need to become more sustainable. They concentrate traffic, pollution, energy use and waste, so it makes sense that planners want cleaner transport, more green space and streets designed less around cars. These changes can make urban areas healthier and more pleasant to live in. But there is a problem. Once an area becomes cleaner, safer and more attractive, it often becomes more expensive too. Property values rise. Developers become more interested. Wealthier residents move in. The people who needed those improvements most find themselves pushed out before they get to properly benefit from it.
This is often called green gentrification. It happens when environmental improvements make a place more desirable, but also less affordable. A new park, a regenerated waterfront or a pedestrianised high street may reduce pollution and improve public space. At the same time, it can raise rents and change the social character and identity of the area. So the benefits are not shared equally. One group gains cleaner streets and rising asset values, while another group loses access to the place they used to call home. That matters because sustainability is not just about carbon emissions. It is also about justice. A city cannot really be called sustainable if the environmental benefits are enjoyed mainly by wealthier groups, while lower-income residents are pushed into cheaper, more polluted or less well-connected areas. The key question is not only whether a policy is green, but who it is green for.
Barcelona’s El Raval is a useful example for this. Regeneration and rebranding have helped improve parts of the area’s image, attracting tourism, investment and new forms of consumption. A highlight of the regeneration was the Ramble Del Raval, a 300m pedestrianised street constructed in 1995 it is filled with trees, modern art and cafes – the embodiment of green urban redevelopment. On the surface, this looks like successful place-making. Yet it also raises a more uncomfortable question: who benefits from that improvement? If urban change is driven mainly by external investors, visitors and middle-class consumers, local residents may experience it less as progress and more as exclusion. This links to a wider geographical point. Places are not blank spaces where policy simply happens. They are lived spaces, shaped by identity, memory, routine and conflict. A sustainability scheme might look successful in a report or on a map, but its real impact depends on what it does to access, affordability and belonging. Green infrastructure is therefore not without negative externalities. It changes the social geography of a city.
The challenge is to make sure environmental improvement and social justice are not treated as
separate goals. Greener cities need protections built into them: affordable housing, rent
controls, community ownership, proper consultation and planning that actually listens to
existing residents. Otherwise, sustainability can become another form of exclusion, just with
politically correct branding.
Ultimately, sustainability should be judged not only by whether it reduces emissions, but by
whether it creates fairer places. A truly sustainable city is not just one with cleaner air, more
trees and nicer public spaces. It is one where those improvements are shared, and where
communities are not displaced in the name of progress.
Henry J.V. East 04/05/2026
Add comment
Comments