Engineering gentrification: urban redevelopment, sustainability policy, and green stormwater infrastructure in Minneapolis

ABSTRACT

Cities increasingly turn to green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) to improve water quality and mitigate flooding risk, yet like other forms of green infrastructure, early research suggests GSI may contribute to ‘green gentrification,’ in which greening increases housing costs, drives gentrification and displacement, and deepens inequalities. Using a spatially explicit mixed-methods approach, I interrogate the relationship between GSI and gentrification in Minneapolis, MN, a city characterized by deep racial inequalities potentially exacerbated by green gentrification. From 2000-2015, census tracts that gentrified received, on average, more GSI projects, more funding per project, and more funding overall. Gentrified tracts received five times more GSI funding than low-income tracts that did not gentrify. Buffer analysis reveals that, adjacent to GSI, rent prices and the college-educated share of the population increased at rates significantly higher than the city average. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of institutions providing and receiving GSI funding indicates that inter-governmental collaborations between watershed governing bodies and city government direct GSI funding to gentrifying areas, where GSI aid in and legitimize the aesthetic transformation of gentrifying neighborhoods. When enmeshed in neighborhood recapitalization via green gentrification, GSI may ultimately deepen environmental inequalities, highlighting the need for planning and policies that proactively mitigate gentrification risks.

KEYWORDS:

• Green gentrification
• Adaptation planning
• urban resilience
• Green infrastructure
• environmental justice

Acknowledgements

This work was funded in part by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. I am thankful to the interviewees who provided critical insights into and shared data on GSI in Minneapolis. Thank you to Mikaela Rogers Ziegler and Erik Haugen for assisting with collection of interview data and to Greta Friedemann-Sanchez and Sarah Carroll for early feedback on conceptual framing. Additionally, I am appreciative of feedback from Bonnie Keeler, Kate Derickson, and Zbigniew Grabowski. Feedback from anonymous reviewers greatly strengthened this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The People’s Budget, 2020 https://secure.everyaction.com/lvg2oZQrXUmIergJ0D29OQ2; “Activist groups release People’s Budget,” 2020 https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/local-businesses-and-organizations-back-significant-cuts-to-mpd-budget.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded in part by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. I am thankful to the interviewees who provided critical insights into and shared data on GSI in Minneapolis.

Notes on contributors

Rebecca H. Walker

Rebecca H. Walker is a doctoral student in urban planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.