This article is a collaboration of BCNUEJ lab members Isabelle Anguelovski, Lucia Argüelles, Helen Cole, James Connolly, Kaitlyn Dietz, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Panagiota Kotsila, Tiphaine Leurent, Julia Mangione, Carmen Pérez del Pulgar, Galia Shokry, Margarita Triguero-Mas. An edited, Spanish version of this article was published on November 4th 2018 in ElPeriodico.
Research shows that fears of eviction and displacement resulting from gentrification are having serious consequences on the health of vulnerable communities, ranging from stress and depression to healthcare precarity and increased crime.
In major cities around the world, concerns over gentrification have moved to the top of local political agendas. Mass tourism, short-term housing rentals, real estate speculation and even re-greening processes have increased housing prices and the cost of living, leading cities like Chicago, Vienna and Barcelona to craft regulations and interventions to prevent displacement of long-term residents and vulnerable communities.
The capacity of progressive policy-makers and planners to address this problem is often constrained by legacies of urban segregation and inequalities, supra-municipal laws and regulations, and by the power of real estate investors, urban designers, and restaurant and hotel owners who promote the value of urban revitalization, gentrification and the “clean-up” of previously disinvested neighborhoods. And while some of revitalization schemes may enhance quality of life for some, urban regeneration — and the often ensuing gentrification — is seldom a benefit for working class, minority, and even middle-class residents, especially so in global cities embedded in large flows of international investments, transactions, and movements of citizens.
Our most recent research of this trend in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella and East Boston reveals startlingly similar patterns of how gentrification is contributing to poorer health and well-being for long-term residents, increasing criminal behavior, and undermining security. Our research of these two cities, which forms part of a broader EU-funded study undertaken by our lab titled GreenLulus that researches inequalities and social impacts associated with urban greening initiatives, provides a marker of comparably global cities undergoing similar revitalization processes. Data we have collected in the form of interviews and observation in neighborhoods across these two cities, among others, shows a number of detrimental effects to residents ranging from stress and depression in adults and children to healthcare precarity and a rise in crime.
New high-end real estate projects in East Boston, bordering the greenway and the waterfront. Photo by Isabelle Anguelovski
Mental and physical health
Our field work found that gentrification contributes to chronic stress, depression, and suicidal thought patterns among residents threatened by eviction and displacement, even in neighborhoods that have become greener, more liveable, and more walkable.
In Barcelona, a recent study shows that 84% of men and 91% of women under threat of displacement have poor mental health, including anxiety and depression. In East Boston, many residents are losing access to community gardens being replaced by new infrastructure, housing, or up-scale gardeners, and reportedly avoiding new or renovated green spaces and sportsgrounds, such as the Lopresti Park in East Boston, because they feel out-of-place. In a long-time Latino and Italian working-class neighborhood in the area also undergoing green gentrification, a leader of a community organization said: “We just had a mass discussion about suicide. We have youth come to us and say, ‘I don’t know what to do, I feel suicidal.’ We have had to get training, and we have a teen hotline. We now have kids going to their primary physician for trauma and psychological support.”
Increased housing costs are also creating fears of displacement among working-class immigrant families that have already been displaced by war or conflict. In the context of stricter immigration laws under the Trump Administration in the US, immigrant families often decide to “self-evict” in order to avoid the courts and a possible eviction record. Moreover, they rarely denounce abusive landlords for fear of retaliation that would affect their immigration status, despite being documented, legal immigrants. These fears, coupled with feelings of erasure and unworthiness, are having significant effects on self-esteem and mental health.
Gentrification is also affecting physical health. In Barcelona and Boston, despite some residents benefitting from new green and public spaces, many also report sleep deprivation from air and noise pollution, much of it due to uncontrolled real estate construction and in other cases, to noisy visitors and tourists. In Barcelona’s Vallcarca neighborhood, where transit connections to the nearby Park Guell have made tourism the most frequent issue of concern, air pollution from construction sites has been shown to increase local risks of respiratory diseases such as asthma. In a previous study we conducted in East Austin, we found that Latino residents report high rates of asthma among children as a consequence of unfettered construction.
Finally, food gentrification in the form of food deserts and food mirages is also impacting health in working-class neighborhoods where residents encounter greater difficulty to find sources of fresh and affordable food. In East Boston in particular, youth and adults’ cardiovascular disease and obesity rates are on the rise because of poor eating behaviors exacerbated by high stress and the difficulty to afford healthy and fresh food.
Lopresti Park, Boston. Long-term residents and community organizations have said that local youth are feeling pushed out by gentrifiers coming to use these spaces. Photo by Isabelle Anguelovski
Fragile and Incomplete Health Care
Chronic anxiety and stress combined with increased financial strain for residents also affect health care and care delivery. In the United States, and even in Spain, many health care plans do not offer provisions for mental health. When families suffer from financial stress, they are often forced to choose between paying for health care or rent. In East Boston, many families increasingly resort to the local community health center for emergency visits rather than preventive care because of growing fears of deportation — a fear visible throughout the US under the Trump administration — and because they do not feel motivated to take care of their health in a more proactive way when faced with more pressing immediate everyday concerns. This trend of combined fear and discouragement causes disruptions to the continuity of care necessary to provide adequate control of chronic conditions.
Public health care facilities—federally-qualified community health centers in particular—are also under stress when they themselves are confronted with increased rent; when health care might be discontinued as patients are forced out of their neighborhoods; and when increased traffic and density in the gentrified neighborhoods, such as East Boston, prevent health care workers from reporting to work on time. At the same time, in contrast, private health centers or facilities are sprouting up in gentrifying neighborhoods, exemplifying what members of our research team have referred to as health care gentrification.
Demonstrators protest to call on the School Reform Commission to halt plans to phase out Strawberry Mansion High School. Photo by Yong Kim/philly.com
Well-being concerns for school-aged children
Quality of education is also affected by gentrification and displacement, with accrued impacts on children’s health and well-being. In both Barcelona and Boston, sudden and severe rent increases for lower-income families force families to relocate to new neighborhoods or schools often in the middle of the academic year, contributing to acute stress, trauma, and anxiety for both parents and children. This turnover rate, in turn, brings down school ratings, thus jeopardizing their budget and ability to provide adequate services and education.
School closures can signify new indirect exposure to violence. In Philadelphia, school closures endanger the lives of kids having to walk through more violent areas to get to school. School closures also cause many families to lose access to school green spaces and playgrounds that remained open to the public after hours.
Many of these schools are closing or forced to compete with charter or private schools, which in turn attract new gentrifiers, generating more displacement. In areas with new developments, units tend to be built for young professionals without children, driving down school-age populations in those areas. In the case of East Austin in Texas, where five elementary schools are slated to close, the reason cited by community organizers is that gentrifiers do not have children.
The problem goes beyond school grounds. In Boston and Barcelona, similar to other places in the US and Europe, children from families who are able to stay often feel unwelcome in the public spaces, playgrounds, and green spaces that they traditionally relied on. Spaces where children go to socialize, build community cohesion, and negotiate their identity are being increasingly used for entertainment and even binge drinking by visitors and tourists. We can see this happening in parks such as the Pou de la Figuera or the Parc de la Catalana in Barcelona, and exemplifies a process that tends to degrade the social and cultural fabric of the neighborhood and residents’ traditional uses of public spaces and nature. In other instances, recreational spaces for children and families have become semi-privatized or only accessible via a fee.
Residents in Raval, Barcelona protest against the proliferation of “narcopisos” in their neighborhood. Photo by Jordi Cotrina/ElPeriodico
Increased Insecurity and Crime
The most acute health and wellbeing impacts reported so far in our research relate to drug consumption, drug dealing, and violence in newly gentrified neighborhoods, which incidentally, runs counter to previous gentrification research on the benefits of gentrification in reducing crime rates.
The growing presence of marijuana clubs and drug dealing or consumption in gentrifying neighborhoods has contributed to greater insecurity. In Boston, a local police officer reported that dealers frequently come in and out new luxury buildings to sell their drugs. In Barcelona, the dense neighborhoods of Sant Pere and Santa Caterina have five legal marijuana clubs—many of which attract tourists—and many other illegal ones, some of which have opened up next to primary schools like Escola Cervantes or La Salle Comtal. This fuels public consumption and debilitates existing structures of informal social care and collective child care and further limits opportunities to use public space among the residents: either to socialize or to be physically active. Drug use also increases among socially vulnerable residents because of their difficulty in dealing with constant stress and insecurity.
Many tourists often consume drugs or alcohol in new parks or playgrounds, such as the Pou de la Figuera or the Parc de la Barceloneta, during the same hours when children are playing. Families also report changing their routes to avoid certain streets, having witnessed fights between pushers competing with one another. A mother from a parent association in a local Barcelona school said: “I now have to avoid certain streets because of fights between youth who are either drugged or deal drugs. That was not the case 5 years ago. Neighbors had organized to improve the quality of the neighborhood, to make it greener and more liveable. Now, we are going back in time. We have this crazy contrast between families leaving because they can’t afford rents, living in the midst of tourists and wealthy speculators, and, on the other hand, others are leaving because they can’t take the fights or the drugs anymore and are afraid for their kids. Overall we are losing our middle class.” These dynamics have increased in recent years due to Barcelona’s new reputation as a drug tourism city. In general, more frequent unruly behavior— sometimes between gangs trying to sell to tourists or to new wealthy residents and, other times, by drunk or drugged gentrifiers or tourists themselves—is causing greater fear and overall insecurity for residents in both Barcelona and Boston.
In Barcelona, narcopisos or “narco-flats” are also growing in gentrifying areas like the old town, mostly due to the growth of vacant bank-owned flats since the 2008 real estate crisis. According to the Spanish judiciary, at least 80,000 evictions have been ordered in the province of Barcelona between 2008 and 2017, leaving thousands of flats in the hand of banks and investment funds. In the Raval neighborhood, at least 50 narco-flats have been identified in a hotspot of empty bank-owned flats and where , signalling an alliance between drug dealers, banks, and real estate speculators. Despite recurring calls from the City of Barcelona, many banks and speculative funds engage property mobbing, neglecting apartments that are eventually occupied by drug dealers as a tactic to allowing them invisibly evict tenants and flat owners so that entire buildings can be sold to foreign funds, and rehabbed for wealthy foreigners.
Theft has also increased in East Boston and the neighborhoods of Sant Pere and Santa Caterina in Barcelona as a result of the mass presence of tourists and wealthy residents. Such trends are not unique to Boston and Barcelona with tourism having been blamed for its contribution to to the spatial concentration of people — seen as ‘stranger’ visitors, — which can in turn drive crime issues.
Finally, residents are also faced with increased risk of injury due to traffic accidents resulting from chaotic traffic patterns. In Barcelona, new electric scooter and bike stores are opening up on pedestrian streets, often next to schools, and tourists zip around tight streets, increasing risks of collisions and accidents, especially for children and the elderly. In East Boston, similar threats presented by gentrifiers with luxury cars have been reported by local police.
A view of Boston skyline from the newly renovated East Boston waterfront. Photo by Isabelle Anguelovski
Where do we go from here?
To address these problems, we need new research that better understands the links between gentrification and health: Whose health improves or deteriorates thanks to neighborhood “clean-up” and new public and green amenities? This link is still understudied.
Achieving equity in urban health and reducing health inequalities requires a more complex approach than simply claiming that enhanced public spaces, new parks and gardens, or pedestrianized streets contribute to better health. A recent study we conducted (pending publication) in New York City using data from the 2009 to 2013 Community Health Survey reveals that only residents with at least a college degree and those with incomes at least 400% of the federal poverty level seem to benefit from living in neighborhoods with high levels of active green space.
Integrating the concerns of vulnerable social groups is core to the process of designing equitably beneficial public and green spaces. It also means valuing and reflecting local ways of life in the way spaces are designed and made accessible, rather than succumbing to tourist uses and fleeting gentrifier tastes. There must also be an increased focus on interactional justice, or the dynamics around the ways spaces are actually being used by residents, beyond just a focus on improved participation or better distribution of environmental goods.
Public action needs to place the well-being and health of existing residents at the center of public policy and planning. Residents must feel that their concerns are being heard and taken into consideration. Hopeful initiatives include new social housing quotas and turning unoccupied bank-repossessed properties into affordable housing in Barcelona, or Philadelphia Land Bank’s vacant lot scheme designed to “preserve and enhance affordability.”
Lastly, we call for greater genuine cooperation between public entities and institutions at different territorial levels – municipality, region, and national state – without avoiding one’s responsibilities and letting other interests supersede residents’ needs. Public officials must focus on urgent urban issues that presently threaten social cohesion and well-being. Cities are first and foremost created for and by their residents. Let’s ensure that public authorities focus on long-term and minority residents, and through mechanisms like community-based social organizations, are able to materialize priorities through the creation of equitable, healthy, and liveable urban spaces.
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Top photo: A protests against gentrification in Poble Nou, Barcelona last May. Photo by Joan Cordadella/ElPeriodico
