URBLIV

Building just and livable cities: Participation and contestation in neighborhood revitalization

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Environmental justice (EJ) scholarship has revealed that communities of color and low-income neighborhoods have been disproportionally affected by 'brown' contaminating facilities and excluded from decision-making on their land. However, traditional EJ studies tend to overlook the fact that residents also fight proactively to achieve long-term equitable revitalization and improve the livability and environmental quality of their neighborhoods through parks, playgrounds, urban agriculture, fresh markets, and improved waste management. This project is built around a collaborative, comparative, and multidisciplinary study of three critical case studies of marginalized neighborhoods organizing for improved environmental and health quality in three cities – Barcelona, Boston, Havana. This research will further develop the nascent environmental justice scholarship in the European Research Area by focusing on how residents make proactive environmental and health claims, defend their vision for improved lasting neighborhood conditions, and address inequalities in environmental planning decisions in cities that encompass a variety of political systems and contexts of marginalization. It will also improve our understanding of how larger processes of urbanization, segregation, and land-use decisions have contributed to creating an identity in impoverished urban neighborhoods and later shaped mobilization. More broadly, this project will strengthen and broaden the fields of political ecology, urban sociology, and environmental governance in the European research community; it will create an international umbrella platform of expert scholars and NGOs working on achieving environmental justice and environmental governance in the United States and Europe; and it will contribute to the training of graduate students in environmental conflicts and environmental justice research, thus promoting scientific excellence and knowledge transfer to the European Research Area.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Residents in marginalised neighbourhoods have it within their power to improve the liveability and environmental quality of their communities. This finding is the result of a study showing how neighbourhood decay and trauma can be transformed through urban environmental projects.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

With the support of EU funding, the 'Building just and livable cities: participation and contestation in neighborhood revitalization' (URBLIV) project took a qualitative approach to highlight how resident actions can translate to community recovery. Three case studies were conducted, covering the neighbourhoods of Cayo Hueso (Havana, Cuba), Dudley (Boston, United States) and Casc Antic (Barcelona, Spain). All historically marginalised, these neighbourhoods took a proactive approach to fighting degradation and abandonment.

Data collection involved interviews, observations and secondary data reviews. Through analyses, they sought to understand the individual and collectives meanings reflected in residents' actions. Researchers assessed how the developed strategies built on local individual and collective identities that take shape in various political systems and contexts of marginalisation.

Research results have contributed a deeper understanding of how residents in such neighbourhoods can make a positive impact through organisation, community claims and engaging with supporters.

URBLIV activities also involved the organisation and teaching of courses in Political Ecology; Political Ecology, Environmental Conflicts and Justice; and Research Design and Qualitative Methods. In addition, the project developed a transnational environmental justice umbrella platform. This represents a new research collaboration on environmental gentrification in partnership with the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

A series of research papers on various topics related to the project and its findings have been submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. These include the Journal of Planning Education and Research and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Other publications include two book chapters on 'Urban Gardening' and 'Environmental Justice'.

Project efforts and outcomes have strengthened the relevance of urban environmental justice dimensions in urban policy and planning. URBLIV's work is thus set to help residents in marginalised neighbourhoods organise and transform their communities for enhanced quality of life.