The role of environmental justice in the fight against gentrification

Abstract

Nationwide environmental justice organizations are involved in campaigns to address gentrification within their communities. This thesis explores the ways in which these organizations connect the issue of gentrification to environmental issues and how they are using community organizing to confront it. This research is based on case studies of six environmental justice organizations with active anti-gentrification campaigns, located in Boston, Oakland, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Brooklyn. After years of organizing for brownfield redevelopment, transit justice, food justice, and climate justice they are finding that their community-led initiatives are gaining the attention of profit-seeking developers and gentrifiers. The Principles of Environmental Justice guide these organizations to protect health, preserve culture, and ensure self-determination, however, gentrification erodes each of these goals. They are further called to action because gentrification displaces the constituents whom their initiatives are aimed to support. Environmental justice organizations are using coalition building, partnerships, community engagement, and cooperative economics to challenge the systemic racism and classism within existing land use and environmental policies that promote gentrification. From these organizations, planners can learn to prevent gentrification through measuring the gentrification potential of their projects, creating interagency working groups, and promoting community-based planning.