Papers by Isabelle Anguelovski
Supplemental material, APPENDIX_Interview_Instrument for Urban green boosterism and city affordab... more Supplemental material, APPENDIX_Interview_Instrument for Urban green boosterism and city affordability: For whom is the 'branded' green city? by Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole, James JT Connolly, Lucía Argüelles, Francesc Baró, Stephanie Loveless, Carmen Pérez del Pulgar Frowein and Galia Shokry in Urban Studies
A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plan... more A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities across diverse developmental and environmental conditions. We argue that urban adaptation injustices fall into two categories: acts of commission when interventions negatively affect or displace poor communities and acts of omission when they protect and prioritize elite groups at the expense of the urban poor.
With rapid development of China's market economy, business activities face many risks. The core o... more With rapid development of China's market economy, business activities face many risks. The core of the overall management and control of risk is the company's financial risk management. In order to prevent financial risks caused by business management crisis and promote corporate healthy steady sustainable development, the focus on financial risk management and control is a possible series of financial problems and risk to predict and control in the future. In this paper, based on the financial risk characteristics of Chinese enterprises and the management and control situation, in the new period, we strengthen risk awareness, improved scientific financial decisions and build financial risk management and control system by analysing impact factors of financial risk in China to put forward the corresponding management and control strategies.
Environmental Justice, 2021
The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and im... more The expanding reach of urban greening across the United States and beyond often materially and immaterially impacts communities of color, leading to displacement and decreased access to new urban a...
This article critically examines the mechanisms of inequality that perpetuate vulnerability to ex... more This article critically examines the mechanisms of inequality that perpetuate vulnerability to extreme natural phenomena. It demonstrates that the catastrophic consequences of a natural disaster result more from a social process than the event itself. The analysis, based on ethnographic research in a municipality of the Mam Guatemalan Altiplano, first considers the construction of social and cultural vulnerability to disasters. It then provides an analysis of the tensions between a traditional Mayan discourse and respect for nature and the unsustainable practices of land management as exhibited in this context. Finally, I reflect on the unjust historical distribution of land in Guatemala and the dominant ideology of the global market, both of which render impossible a sustainable relationship with the natural environment. These unsustainable environmental practices, caused by economical and social inequalities, produce an unjust distribution of vulnerabilities to disasters. 84 PROCT...
Social Science & Medicine, 2021
Theories of epidemiologic transition analyze the shift in causes of mortality due to changes in r... more Theories of epidemiologic transition analyze the shift in causes of mortality due to changes in risk factors over time, and through processes of urbanization and development by comparing risk factors between countries or over time. These theories do not account for health inequities such as those resulting from environmental injustice, in which minority and lower income residents are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards or have less access to environmental goods. Neighborhoods with histories of environmental injustice are also at risk for gentrification as they undergo environmental improvements and new greening projects. We aimed to understand how environmental injustice, urban renewal and green gentrification could inform the understanding of epidemiologic risk transitions. We examined 7 case neighborhoods in cities in the United States and Western Europe which were representative in terms of city region and type, which 1) had experienced a history of environmental injustice and 2) exhibited evidence of recent processes of urban renewal and/or gentrification. In each city, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 172) with city representatives, activists, non-profits, developers and residents. Respondents reported health implications of traditional (heavy pollutants, poor social conditions), transitional (decontamination, new amenities), new (gentrification, access to amenities), and emerging (displacement, climate-related risks, re-emergence of traditional exposures) exposures. Respondents reported renewed, complexified and overlapping exposures leading to poor mental and physical health and to new patterns of health inequity. Our findings point to the need for theories of environmental and epidemiologic risk transitions to incorporate analysis of trends 1) on a city-scale, acknowledging that segregation and patterns of environmental injustice have created unequal conditions within cities and 2) over a shorter and more recent time period, taking into account worsening patterns of social inequity in cities.
Health & Place, 2021
As global cities grapple with the increasing challenge of gentrification and displacement, resear... more As global cities grapple with the increasing challenge of gentrification and displacement, research in public health and urban geography has presented growing evidence about the negative impacts of those unequal urban changes on the health of historically marginalized groups. Yet, to date comprehensive research about the variety of health impacts and their pathways beyond single case sites and through an international comparative approach of different gentrification drivers and manifestations remains scarce. In this paper, we analyze qualitative data on the pathways by which gentrification impacts the health of historically marginalized residents in 14 cities in Europe and North America. We build on 77 interviews with key neighborhood stakeholders. Data analysis indicates four main concurrent processes: Threats to housing and financial security; Socio-cultural displacement; Loss of services and amenities through institutional gentrification; and Increased risks of criminal behavior and compromised public safety. Gentrification is experienced as a chain of physical and emotional community and individual traumas - an overall shock for historically marginalized groups - because of permanent pressures of insecurity, loss, state of displaceability, and the associated exacerbation of socio-environmental disadvantages.
Environmental Science & Policy, 2020
Localized prostate cancer (PCa) is a manageable disease but for most men with metastatic disease,... more Localized prostate cancer (PCa) is a manageable disease but for most men with metastatic disease, it is often fatal. A western diet has been linked with PCa progression and hyperglycaemia has been associated with the risk of lethal and fatal prostate cancer. Using PCa cell lines, we examined the impact of IGF-I and glucose on markers of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), migration and invasion. We examined the underlying mechanisms using cell lines and tumour tissue samples. IGF-I had differential effects on the process of EMT: inhibiting in normal and promoting in cancer cells, whereas hyperglycamia alone had a stimulatory effect in both. These effects were independent of IGF and in both cases, hyperglycaemia induced an increase IGFBP-2(tumour promoter) and FOXA1. A positive correlation existed between levels of IGFBP-2 and FOXA1 in benign and cancerous prostate tissue samples and in vitro and in vivo data indicated that FOXA1 strongly interacted with the IGFBP-2 gene in normal prostate epithelial cells that was associated with a negative regulation of IGFBP-2, whereas in cancer cells the level of FOXA1 associating with the IGFBP-2 gene was minimal, suggesting loss of this negative regulation. IGF-I and hyperglycaemia-induced FOXA1/IGFBP-2 play important roles in EMT.
Cities & Health, 2020
Planetary urbanization exacerbates the spread of infectious disease and the emergence of pandemic... more Planetary urbanization exacerbates the spread of infectious disease and the emergence of pandemics. As COVID-19 cases continue to swell in cities around the world, the pandemic has visibilized urban health inequities. In the Global North, emerging trends show that lower income residents are often at greater risk for infection and death due to COVID-19, due in part to inequitable living, working and environmental conditions. We explore the underlying causes and potential long-term implications of the health inequities exemplified by outbreaks of COVID-19 in the context of evolving patterns of urban development, drawing from theories of urban environmental justice and gentrification.
One Earth, 2020
Cities are projected to hold two-thirds of the world's population by 2050 under a period of i... more Cities are projected to hold two-thirds of the world's population by 2050 under a period of intensifying climate change. Ensuring sustainable, climate-resilient, and equitable cities will require moving beyond incremental adaptation to transformative adaptation. What does transformative adaptation mean for cities, and how can it be achieved, particularly in cities with low adaptive capacity?
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2020
Supported by a large body of scholarship, it is increasingly orthodox practice for cities to depl... more Supported by a large body of scholarship, it is increasingly orthodox practice for cities to deploy urban greening interventions to address diverse socioenvironmental challenges, from protecting urban ecosystems to enhancing built environments and climate resilience or improving health outcomes. In this article, we expand the theoretical boundaries used to challenge this growing orthodoxy by laying out a nuanced framework that advances critical urban environmental justice scholarship. Beginning from the now wellsupported assumption that urban greening is a deeply political project often framed by technocratic principles and promotional claims that this project will result in more just and prosperous cities, we identify existing contributions and limits when examining urban green inequities through the traditional lenses of distributional, recognition, and procedural justice. We then advocate for and lay out a different analytical framework for analyzing justice in urban greening. We argue that new research must uncover how persistent domination and subordination prevent green interventions from becoming an emancipatory antisubordination, intersectional, and relational project that considers the needs, identities, and everyday lives of marginalized groups. Finally, we illustrate our framework's usefulness by applying it to the analysis of urban residents' (lack of) access to urban greening and by operationalizing it for two different planning and policy domains: (1) greening for well-being, care, and health and (2) greening for recreation and play. This final analysis serves to provide critical questions and strategies that can hopefully guide new urban green planning and practice approaches. Key Words: critical environmental justice, emancipatory greening, green infrastructure, nature in the city, urban greening.
Social Science & Medicine, 2021
BACKGROUND Cities are restoring existing natural outdoor environments (NOE) or creating new ones ... more BACKGROUND Cities are restoring existing natural outdoor environments (NOE) or creating new ones to address diverse socio-environmental and health challenges. The idea that NOE provide health benefits is supported by the therapeutic landscapes concept. However, several scholars suggest that NOE interventions may not equitably serve all urban residents and may be affected by processes such as gentrification. Applying the therapeutic landscapes concept, this study assesses the impacts of gentrification processes on the associations between NOE and the health of underprivileged, often long-term, neighborhood residents. METHODS We examined five neighborhoods in five cities in Canada, the United States and Western Europe. Our case studies were neighborhoods experiencing gentrification processes and NOE interventions. In each city, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews on NOE interventions, equity/justice, gentrification and health (n = 117) with case study neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, neighborhood resident leaders and other stakeholders such as public agencies staff. RESULTS Respondents highlighted a variety of interconnected and overlapping factors: the insufficient benefits of NOE to counterbalance other factors detrimental to health, the use of NOE for city branding and housing marketing despite pollution, unwelcomeness, increase of conflicts, threats to physical displacement for themselves and their social networks, unattractiveness, deficient routes, inadequate NOE maintenance and lack of safety in NOE. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrated that underprivileged neighborhood residents were perceived to experience new or improved NOE as what we call "disruptive green landscapes" (i.e. non-therapeutic landscapes with which they were not physically or emotionally engaged) instead of as therapeutic landscapes.
Preventing Chronic Disease, 2020
What is already known on this topic? Community gardens can improve gardeners' health but no resea... more What is already known on this topic? Community gardens can improve gardeners' health but no research has focused on quality of life, rooftop gardens, or people with intellectual disability or mental health disorders. What is added by this study? We evaluated 2 rooftop gardens in Barcelona and collected quantitative and qualitative data from January through June 2018. Gardening was associated with personal development and may be related to emotional wellbeing, physical well-being, social inclusion, interpersonal relations, sense of purpose, and overall quality of life. What are the implications for public health practice? Rooftop gardening can be used to promote quality of life among people with intellectual disabilities or mental health disorders.
Urban Studies, 2019
Increasingly, greening in cities across the Global North is enmeshed in strategies for attracting... more Increasingly, greening in cities across the Global North is enmeshed in strategies for attracting capital investment, raising the question: for whom is the future green city? Through exploring the relationship between cities’ green boosterist rhetoric, affordability and social equity considerations within greening programmes, this paper examines the extent to which, and why, the degree of green branding – that is, urban green boosterism – predicts the variation in city affordability. We present the results of a mixed methods, macroscale analysis of the greening trajectories of 99 cities in Western Europe, the USA and Canada. Our regression analysis of green rhetoric shows a trend toward higher cost of living among cities with the longest duration and highest intensity green rhetoric. We then use qualitative findings from Nantes, France, and Austin, USA, as two cases to unpack why green boosterism correlates with lower affordability. Key factors determining the relation between urban...
Climate and Development, 2019
As experts predict that at least some irreversible climate change will occur with potentially dis... more As experts predict that at least some irreversible climate change will occur with potentially disastrous effects on the lives and well-being of vulnerable communities around the world, it is paramount to ensure that these communities are resilient and have adaptive capacity to withstand the consequences. Adaptation and resilience planning present several ethical issues that need to be resolved if we are to achieve successful adaptation and resilience to climate change, taking into consideration vulnerabilities and inequalities in terms of power, income, gender, age, sexuality, race, culture, religion, and spatiality. Sustainable adaptation and resilience planning that addresses these ethical issues requires interdisciplinary dialogues between the natural sciences, social sciences, and philosophy, in order to integrate empirical insights on socioeconomic inequality and climate vulnerability with ethical analysis of the underlying causes and consequences of injustice in adaptation and resilience. In this paper, we set out an interdisciplinary research agenda for the inclusion of ethics and justice theories in adaptation and resilience planning, particularly into the Sixth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6). We present six core discussions that we believe should be an integral part of these interdisciplinary dialogues on adaptation and resilience as part of IPCC AR6, especially Chapters 2 ("Terrestial and freshwater ecosystems and their services"), 6 ("Cities, settlements and key infrastructure"), 7 ("Health, wellbeing and the changing structure of communities"), 8 ("Poverty, livelihoods and sustainable development"), 16 "Key risks across sectors and regions"), 17 ("Decision-making options for managing risk"), and 18 ("Climate resilient development pathways").: (i) Where does 'justice' feature in resilience and adaptation planning and what does it require in that regard?; (ii) How can it be ensured that adaptation and resilience strategies protect and take into consideration and represent the interest of the most vulnerable women and men, and communities?; (iii) How can different forms of knowledge be integrated within adaptation and resilience planning?; (iv) What trade-offs need to be made when focusing on resilience and adaptation and how can they be resolved?; (v) What roles and responsibilities do different actors have to build 3 resilience and achieve adaptation?; (vi) Finally, what does the focus on ethics imply for the practice of adaptation and resilience planning?
Cities & Health, 2019
In many global cities, the impacts of gentrification on the lives and well-being of socially vuln... more In many global cities, the impacts of gentrification on the lives and well-being of socially vulnerable residents have occupied recent political agendas. Yet to date, research on how gentrification affects a multiplicity of health outcomes has remained scarce. While much of the nascent quantitative research helps to identify associations between gentrification and determined health outcomes, it tends to draw from static datasets collected for other studies and purposes to draw a posteriori and non-longitudinal conclusions. There is little attention in traditional public health research to purposely understand the health impacts of the complex, multi-layered, and rapid change produced by gentrification. Moreover, few studies examine the pathways and socio-spatial dynamics of the association between gentrification and health. In response, we use qualitative data collected during fieldwork in two global cities undergoing acute gentrification, Boston and Barcelona, to comprehensively identify how the health and well-being of long-term residents may be affected by gentrification. In this initial assessment, we find a range of potential detrimental factors associated with gentrification and also potential pathways, including individual-level physical and mental health outcomes such as obesity, asthma, chronic stress, and depression; neighborhood-level health determinants such as safety and new drug-dealing/use; and institutional-level health determinants such as healthcare precarity and worsened school conditions. To fully understand their scope and impacts, we also call here for new research and policy that better understand and address the links between gentrification and health in global cities.
Progress in Human Geography, 2018
Scholars in urban political ecology, urban geography, and planning have suggested that urban gree... more Scholars in urban political ecology, urban geography, and planning have suggested that urban greening interventions can create elite enclaves of environmental privilege and green gentrification, and exclude lower-income and minority residents from their benefits. Yet, much remains to be understood in regard to the magnitude, scope, and manifestations of green gentrification and the forms of contestation and resistance articulated against it. In this paper, we propose new questions, theoretical approaches, and research design approaches to examine the socio-spatial dynamics and ramifications of green gentrification and parse out why, how, where, and when green gentrification takes place.
City, 2018
Today, municipal decision-makers, planners, and investors rely on valuation studies of ecosystem ... more Today, municipal decision-makers, planners, and investors rely on valuation studies of ecosystem services, public health assessments, and real estate projections to promote a consensual view of urban greening interventions such as new parks, greenways, or greenbelts as a public good with widespread benefits for all residents. However, as new green projects often anchor major investment and high-end development, we ask: Does the green city fulfil its promise for inclusive and far-reaching environmental, health, social, and economic benefits or does it create new environmental inequalities and green mirages? Through case examples of diverse urban greening interventions in cities reflecting different urban development trajectories and baseline environmental conditions and needs (Barcelona, Medellin, and New Orleans), we argue that urban greening interventions increasingly create new dynamics of exclusion, polarization, segregation, and invisibilization. Despite claims about the public good, these interventions take place to the detriment of the most socially and racially marginalized urban groups whose land and landscapes are appropriated through the creation of a 'green gap' in property markets. In that sense, green amenities become GreenLULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) and socially vulnerable residents and community groups face a green space paradox, whereby they become excluded from new green amenities they long fought for as part of an environmental justice agenda. Thus, as urban greening consolidates urban sustainability and redevelopment strategies by bringing together private and public investors around a tool for marketing cities with global reach, it also negates a deeper reflection on urban segregation, social hierarchies, racial inequalities, and green privilege.
City, 2018
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
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Papers by Isabelle Anguelovski